100 Themes of the Blind Forest
by IHCFanfic
Summary: 100 short ficlets, using the DeviantArt 100 Themes Challenge (variation 1) as prompts. Mostly within the game's timeline, focusing on Ori and Sein, although occasionally other characters get the POV. Rated T for graphic depiction of injury and death.
1. Chapter 1: Themes 1-10

**Opening Notes:**

NOTE TO ADMINS: This story is based off the 100 Themes Challenge on DeviantArt (Variation 1), but it is in fact a story. Each theme is several hundred words on average, so would qualify as at least a ficlet on its own, and they're all tied together in a single narrative. It jumps around chronologically between themes, but it still follows and develops the same characters in a single timeline.

Anyway, IHC here. I have too many in-progress stories already, but I watched a playthrough of Ori and the Blind Forest (not gonna play the game, because quite frankly I don't have the time to devote to practicing enough to beat it), and I was absolutely blown away. Everything about it is beautiful; the art, the music, the gameplay, how well the game tells a story with such minimal dialogue and narration… and Ori is just so friggin cute!

I decided to do a 100 themes challenge because it lets me write fairly short things without having to tie them all together in order, and it puts less pressure on me to finish since each theme is somewhat self-contained.

For future reference, I'll be using he/him pronouns for Ori throughout this fic. The devs deliberately never specified Ori's gender to leave it up to the player, but that doesn't mean Ori is a genderless being – and some of the spirits of the Ancestral Trees are referred to using male or female pronouns.I always thought of Ori as being a boy because of the name originally being male, and because of the contrast with Sein (technically genderless, but a strongly feminine voice). Plus, using neutral pronouns with multiple characters rapidly gets confusing and/or requires excessive name repetition.

 **1: Introduction**

Ori sank to his knees, panting, as the last of the frog-like creatures who'd attacked him disintegrated into a dry, smoking husk. The battle had only lasted a few seconds, but he felt like he'd been running for miles and miles. Battle… was that what it was? When the creatures first appeared out of the shadows, his only thought was escape, but as he dashed back and forth, avoiding their leaping attacks, he'd found himself surrounded, and… he didn't know what had happened. He hadn't meant to kill them, only in a way he had. It was just a thought, a general intent to attack, but before his body could move there was an odd tingling sensation, and tongues of brilliant white flame leapt from the little orb of light hovering by his side, burning them to ash one by one.

"Ori? What's wrong?" the orb asked, floating slightly closer. Sein. That was her name.

"What did you do to them?" Ori continued to stare at the corpses of the frog-creatures. Small, orange balls of light started to coalesce over their remains.

"I didn't do anything: _we_ did," Sein said matter-of-factly.

"We?"

"Yes. That ability is called the Spirit Flame. Normally spirits can use it on their own, but you're too young to have mastered it, and I suppose Naru couldn't have taught you… I combined your strength with my own and helped focus the power, but without your spark of will… well, it's a good thing you figured out how to use it so quickly."

"So… I killed them?" Ori murmured. He'd known the idea of death for a long time, and from time to time he would see a creature's body, but it had never seemed like something that could happen to him or someone he cared about, not until… not until Naru had gone. He had a hazy, dreamlike memory of stumbling through the forest, lost in his grief, until his strength gave out, and knowing he was going to die too, but had it really happened? Then, some time after he'd woken from that horrible despair, a green-eyed armored beast had charged him. In his panic, he jumped away and it slammed into some loose rocks, which collapsed on it and crushed it. Even knowing that if he hadn't moved he'd have been crushed too, he couldn't shake the feeling that its death was somehow his fault. But the frogs? They were definitely his fault. He'd taken their lives, and it wasn't even an accident, not really. Deep down, he'd _wanted_ to hurt them. Ori blinked away guilty tears. His paws shook, and not having eaten anything for several days was the only thing keeping him from being sick.

"Don't blame yourself," Sein said sympathetically. "Spirit Flame can only harm creatures who intend to harm you. If you hadn't used it, you would certainly have perished at their hands."

"What… what were they, anyway?" Ori asked. "I've never seen anything like them." He hoped he never would again. Even looking at their charred bodies, they seemed… _wrong._ Their flesh was purple and orange mottled, pulpy like a fungus, and riddled with tumor-like lumps and bulges, but what really made him uneasy was the feeling he'd got from their presence. There were three types of creatures he knew of: creatures of light, like him and Sein, creatures of darkness, like Naru, and creatures with pieces of both, like most of the other inhabitants of Nibel he'd seen. These things, though, had a weak, sickly light smothered by layers of darkness; not the warm, comforting darkness he'd known his whole life, but a cold, clammy darkness that gave him the same feeling as staring into the still, glassy eyes of a dead bird.

"Corruptions," answered Sein. "They started appearing after I was separated from the Spirit Tree. Every day there are more and more of them. Any other creature, they kill. Not for food, not for pleasure – I don't think they can even feel pleasure – they just kill. Even when they die, nothing can feed on their poisoned flesh, not even maggots and worms."

"What are those?" Ori pointed to the faint orange globes hovering over the frogs' remains.

"The light that was trapped within them," Sein answered. "It was stolen from their victims, and not allowed to return to the forest."

"Is it freed now?"

"It will become one with Nibel eventually, yes. But it won't make a difference. Without the light of the Spirit Tree, the forest will still die… and you and I are the only ones left who can restore it. For now, you should take the stolen light, and use it for good. You'll need the strength: things will only get worse from here."

 **A/N:** For this theme, I originally wanted to do Ori's introduction to Sein, but really that was one of the few pieces of dialogue already in the game. So instead I showed Ori's introduction to the harsh, dangerous world he's thrust into, and to having to kill other creatures to survive.

 **2\. Love**

Love is a strange thing. Many would say it brings out the best in us, but none know better than I that it can also bring out the worst. It is the bridge between Light and Dark, and it is stronger than either.

That night, long ago, when I lit the sky ablaze searching for lost Ori, the thought never occurred to me that my actions could have endangered innocent lives. But, perhaps, that was truly when the forest went blind, not Kuro's act of revenge. I was blinded by my love for my lost child, and in my recklessness and selfishness I nearly condemned all Nibel to death. Had I known what I know now, I never would have called to him so directly. Not only did Kuro's children, the Gumon, Kuro herself, and many other creatures perish because of my foolishness, but all my other children were lost – Fil, Ano, Ilo, Nir, Tatsu, Atsu, Leru, Reem, Eki, Sol, and so many others.

Even Ori himself… at the time, I truly believed it was best for him to be with his own kind, but all I accomplished was to tear him away from Naru in the most cruel way possible. In truth, that is why I gave the last of my strength to bring him back; in the hope that it would be some small atonement for my mistake. I believed all hope for the forest was lost. But I suppose one can be blind to both the bad and the good results of one's actions. Ori did what I thought impossible; he found my lost eyes, Sein, and together they restored the three Elements… and as an indirect result of his actions, he was reunited with Naru, and eventually with me and his own kind. Yet, even setting aside all the other deaths, I regret calling out to him. The journey brought him so much suffering. He would have been happier with Naru, returning to me only when he was ready.

Kuro, too, was reckless in her love. The loss of her three chicks was a tragedy, but her blind pursuit of revenge was of no help to them. She is as responsible for the near-destruction of the forest as I am, so bent on my destruction and that of all other creatures of light that she nearly let her surviving child burn, just as I lost all my children in a vain attempt to bring one home. In the end, just like me, she made the ultimate sacrifice for her surviving chick. I am not knowledgeable enough in the nature of creatures of the Dark to know if there is a way of bringing her back… but I can only hope that there is not. Not out of any ill will towards Kuro, but because I do not wish such a cruel burden on her child after seeing what it did to Ori. And, like Ori, the owlet is in good hands.

Naru's love was the most pure, the most selfless. She raised Ori as her own, she gave her own life for him just as much as I did, and even after Gumo's sacrifice brought her back, her only thought was to protect him. And, when Ori had given all he could for the sake of me, of Sein, of the whole forest, and Kuro was about to doom it all in her rage, it was Naru who finally showed her the error of her ways… and gave me the opportunity to see the error in mine.

 **A/N:** The Spirit Tree reflects on his poor decisions.

 **3 and 4: Light and Dark**

One of the advantages to being a creature of Light was that Guardian Spirits' bodies had a faint white glow. In daylight it was so weak as to be almost imperceptible, and on stormy days or at dusk the only real effect was that objects had faint, fuzzy shadows that always hid from Ori no matter which way he moved. But Guardian Spirits also had superb night vision. Ori had never experienced true darkness; even on a cloudy, moonless night, inside a hollow log or tree trunk, or in his and Naru's cave, Ori could always see a comfortable distance. Certainly he never had to worry about jumping and not being able to see where he would land.

Thanks to the last gifts of the lost Spirits whose final resting places were marked by the Ancestral Trees, Ori could cover a lot more distance in a single jump than before, he told himself, but he also had much brighter lights. For a start, Sein was with him, and she glowed brighter than he did. Then there was the Spirit Flame, the Charge Flame, and even the ghostly fire of a Soul Link. He _should_ have still been able to see far enough.

But nothing helped. The darkness of the Blackroot Burrows was impenetrable. Except where luminous fungi responded to his approach, or the deadly beams of sickly green, searing light pierced the air, he could see his paw in front of his face, but not much further. The ground underfoot was visible for about a body length away, but only if he stayed there. If he leapt into the air, which he had to do frequently to avoid the ever-present spinebushes, he could, for an instant, not see the ground, ceiling, or walls.

Sein did her best to help, but if she strayed too far from him, even her light faded into the gloom. It was as if the air itself was extinguishing the light – not like fog, or even like dark smoke. Perhaps in this place the Dark ruled, and it didn't _want_ him or any other Light creature who trespassed in its domain to see. Ori shivered, half at the thought and half at the drop of cold water that fell from the ceiling and hit him in the back of the neck.

He crept nervously through the caverns, keeping himself pressed against a wall and his hooves firmly on the ground whenever it was safe to do so. But there were times when he had no choice. Here, the path ended in a sheer drop and overhang underneath a narrow spit of rock. The ceiling was out of reach, and the walls were unadorned by fungi, luminous or not, a sure sign that they were too wet and slippery to cling to or jump off of. A dead end? No, there were faint lights along the far wall. Fungi, and something else, something moving. And another, smaller something getting rapidly closer. He twisted away just in time, and a glob of slime hit the ground where he'd been standing, sprouting deadly, poisoned spikes. He backed away into the passage he'd come from and waited for it to vanish, silently thanking the Spirit Tree that the slime had its own corrupt, purple glow.

Ori had learned from painful experience that the slime globules spat out by the wall-clinging Corruptions couldn't be reflected back at them, and it was too far away to reach with Spirit Flame. But its presence, along with the fungi, meant that the wall was close enough for him to reach. There was only one way forward that he could see: a leap of faith. Taking a deep breath, he crept up to the ledge again, keeping an eye on the Corruption. He waited for it to shoot another volley, and he jumped, leaping again in midair to land as high up on the wall as possible. Above him, something flashed past, brushing against the tips of his ears. It was a small, vertical spit of rock, covered in reflective mushrooms. He knew he could have changed direction and reached it, but he'd already used his second jump.

As he reached the apex of his leap and began to fall, Ori had an ominous feeling… which was quickly confirmed as, unable to change direction, he slammed into the spike-covered wall ahead of him.

 **A/N:** Gee, Light and Dark? What the heck are you supposed to write about these, it's not like they're one of the central themes of the entire game or anything, am I right? So instead, I decided to combine the two themes, and write about actual physical light and darkness.

Ori glows. This is convenient for the developers, since the game is truly two-dimensional: Ori was modeled and animated in 3D, but what's in the game is all pre-rendered sprites. Thanks to some really cool shading software they can put some lighting on the environment, but IIRC there's no external lighting on Ori whatsoever. Having him glow probably helps this not look weird, but it's also absolutely beautiful.

 **5\. Seeking Solace**

It had been three months since the restoration of the Elements, and the forest of Nibel was full of life once again. The Spirit Tree's power had helped the dead trees regrow in a time that would be impossibly short anywhere else, and as sources of food returned, so did the animals. There were hundreds of different species: a few were creatures of Darkness, underground or farther from the Spirit Tree's influence, some were creatures of Light, and the majority were "Grays," beings with both light and dark in their souls. But there was still only one Guardian Spirit.

Soon, Ori knew, more of his kind would be born. With the arrival of the new generation, he would be the eldest. But he couldn't imagine ever thinking of himself that way.

Guardian Spirits lived long lives ordinarily, long enough that before the forest went blind only one or two would be born in a year. Physically, they were fully grown from the moment their leaves touched the ground, but mentally it took them decades to mature. Ori had been forced to bear a responsibility that was far too great even for adults, but having survived the ordeal didn't actually make him an adult. In some ways he had grown – he was more confident wandering the forest alone, and sometimes spent the night perched in the treetops – but he was still a child.

And Ori's journey had changed him in other ways, too. Even after months of peace, he still flinched at the sound of a frog's croak or the sight of glowing white eyes. He was perhaps the only Guardian Spirit who was afraid of the dark; every moving shadow in his peripheral vision, cast by his own dim glow, seemed to be an approaching enemy. He slept in the treetops not only because he could easily reach them with the skills of the lost Spirits of the Ancestral Trees, but because he felt too vulnerable alone on the ground.

But Ori only spent the night alone when he was feeling brave, or when he lost track of time and was caught by the sunset far from home, and not if the moon was new or covered by clouds. Normally Spirits his age would stay in their nests among the roots and branches of the Spirit Tree, or if they were far from him huddle close to a Spirit Well. Ori was different. He'd never truly recovered from the fragments of memory he'd absorbed on that mountain over the Forlorn Ruins; the terror the owlets had felt when the night sky was set ablaze, the feeling of being _burned_ by the same light that nurtured him, Kuro's anguish, and her terrible, terrible rage. His parent's light still comforted him on an instinctive level, but there was always a faint, nagging uneasiness at the edge of his consciousness.

There was another reason Ori usually slept the same place he always had, in the little nest in the cave on the outskirts of Nibel. The nightmares. So many times, he woke up trembling, crying, and gripping his own arm so hard his claws broke the skin and he bled. To a Spirit, being enveloped by light was as good as the touch of another warm body, and when the dreams were of swirling water, or falling onto poisoned spikes, or searing flames, or enormous talons piercing his heart, Sein knew what to say because she'd been there with him through every painful death. Except for one. And that one death, and what came before it, were the real reason. When he dreamed of waking up in a cold, dark, and empty cave, and of wandering through a decaying forest, alone, lost, weak, and frail, the only thing that could make him feel better was crawling into Naru's arms, and knowing for certain that she was still there.

 **A/N:** You know, I just had a realization. My entire fanfiction writing career can pretty much be summarized as: "Giving Adorable, Innocent Creatures PTSD." I _might_ have a problem.

 **6\. Break Away**

"You're _sure_ this will work?" Ori tiptoed up to the edge of the cliff and staring down at the loose rocks just below him.

"I'm sure," said Sein. "Well… pretty sure. The only way the rocks can fall is down."

Ori crept along the ledge, shifting to the side of the rocks to catch a glimpse of the great owl, Kuro. The wind pushed and pulled at his small body, threatening to blow him away into the abyss. His tail extended rigidly behind him for balance. He sank to his belly, digging his claws into the soil, and crawled back away from the ledge. Yes, the rocks would certainly land exactly where she was perched. But… "What if she moves?"

"She won't move," Sein said matter-of-factly. "The Misty Woods are so shrouded by haze that this is the only safe path. She'll guard it; she knows we have to pass through to undo her wrath."

"What if the rocks kill her?" Ori looked down again at the boulders. Kuro might have been big and powerful, but the collection of unstable rocks was just as big as she was and probably much heavier, and it was a dizzying height from the clifftops to the owl's perch, let alone the distance she could fall into the canyon.

Sein hesitated. "I don't know. It's possible… but would it be so bad if they did? One way or another the path would be clear."

"Sein, she's a living creature!" Ori was shocked by the light orb's indifference. "I told you, I felt her presence at the top of the Ginso Tree! Her heart is full of rage, and hatred, but… she's not like the Corruptions. She's like Gumo, or… or Naru."

"I know that, Ori. I felt her too. But we don't have a choice." Sein paused. "Ori, Kuro is the reason the forest is like this. All the spirits who gave you their powers… Fil, Ano, Leru, Reem, and Ilo… they died because of her. Naru died because of her. And you, and I, and the Spirit tree, and the Gumon, and every other creature left in this forest will die if we don't undo the corruption she's spread."

"I know…" Ori whispered. "I just… isn't there another way of distracting her?"

"If it makes you feel better," said Sein, "I really don't think the rocks will seriously hurt her. She flew right into the heart of the Spirit Tree during the Light Ceremony and plucked me out. For a being of such pure darkness to do that she has to be strong, stronger than you can imagine. I'm not _sure_ , but probably."

"Okay…" Ori took a deep breath, and hopped out onto the mass of boulders, held together by decaying tree roots. The wind tore at his fur again, and the rocks swayed ominously. Again he dropped to all fours and crawled out along the unstable surface, limbs splayed wide and ears flattened against his head. Through the gaps in the stone he could see Kuro's immense head, and then the valley floor far, far below, so far he could barely make out individual trees. Another thought occurred to him. "What if they just make her angry?" He asked. "And tell her where we are."

"It's… possible," Sein admitted. "But even if things really go wrong, she doesn't know about the Soul Link; that I'm sure of."

"That's encouraging…" Ori tried to summon the strength for sarcasm through his apprehension. Even this far up, Kuro's hatred was so thick in the air he could practically have jumped off it with Reem's power. He understood what Sein meant; it seemed like he could drop the sky itself on the owl and not even faze her.

Ori pawed at the rock, and sent sparks of Spirit Flame into the cracks, testing it. No, Charge Flame wouldn't break it. He would have to use Ilo's power. He carefully stood up, bracing his hooves against the roughest parts of the rock and trying not to think about how far up he was, or about falling into Kuro's waiting beak and talons. He hadn't really been afraid of heights before the journey, not since well before the forest went blind, and when he'd fallen from trees before he'd never hurt himself badly. But this was far higher than anything but the Ginso Tree, and he knew spikes or jagged branches could be waiting for him on the valley floor.

He looked back up at the cliff face above him. He knew when he knocked the boulders free, he'd have to move _fast_ to get back to safety, and that was if the entire ledge didn't collapse. But there was no other choice. He took a deep breath, planted one arm against the rock to steady himself, and jumped. One jump, and then just as he started to fall again, another jump, the one he'd learned from Leru. Then curl into a ball, making himself as small as possible for protection, gather the light around him into a spherical shield, and will the Earth to pull him towards it as hard as possible.

Ori slammed into the rock, bouncing into the air as he uncurled himself. Even with the protective shield, the impact was so strong his vision momentarily blurred. His hooves touched the boulder again, and he could feel it start to descend. He sprang off it, reaching as high as he could, then sprang off the air itself. The cliff face broke away from the mountain, just as he feared it would, and he was surrounded by a shower of falling stones and boulders. He jumped off one, then used Reem's power to fling himself further upward off another, but it wasn't enough. The cliff still hung out of reach, and he tumbled helplessly through the air. There was a tremendous crash, the ear-ringing screech of an owl, and the next thing he knew, he was lying flat on his back on the other side of the canyon. Above him, a single feather swam into focus, lazily floating downward in exactly the way he couldn't.

 **A/N:** This was a really hard prompt to come up with an idea for, but I guess rocks breaking away from a cliff satisfy it.

 **7\. Heaven**

"Sein?"

"What is it, Ori?"

"What happens when we die?"

Sein was silent for a moment. Her light turned a slightly deeper shade of blue, and Ori thought he saw sparks, like weaker Spirit Flame, dance around her. "…you would know better than me," she replied.

"I mean normally. Our bodies stay there, empty, or we leave an Ancestral tree behind, and maybe our Light stays, but it isn't _us_. Where does the part that is go?"

Sein sighed. She floated closer to Ori, watching his eyes. They never wavered from the frozen black shapes huddled in the corner. "This is about the Gumon, isn't it?"

Ori nodded silently.

"I don't know what happens, Ori. I don't think anyone knows, not even the Spirit Tree." Sein paused again, unsure her answer was enough. But should she say what she _did_ know? Would it help? "I know some creatures believe… or believed, I don't think there are any left… that the souls of the dead go to other worlds, worlds where they're safe forever and nothing can hurt them. So, I suppose creatures of Light like you or I would go somewhere where the entire world is full of Light, like being among the Spirit Tree's branches… and it would be different for creatures of Darkness. Maybe a place where it's always night, or somewhere deep underground."

"Oh." Ori slowly got to his feet, and tore his eyes from the frozen corpses of the Gumon. "Let's go," he said flatly. Sein had a feeling she'd said the wrong thing, but didn't want to keep mentioning whatever it was.

They pressed on through the ruins under the mountain, slowly ascending. But the path was difficult and dangerous. Some of the fragmented stones still burned red-hot; the Light Vessel made them safe to walk on, but did nothing about the bitterly cold air. Anything not heated was coated in slippery frost, and sharp icicles and crystal formations sprouted from every available surface. The Light Vessel was too heavy for Ori to do more than walk and jump with, and it made gravity point in unnatural directions. Navigating the maze of passages and halls required intense concentration, and Sein could tell that Ori didn't have it. After several deaths, she finally worked up the courage to ask him what was wrong.

"You said… you said light and dark creatures don't go to the same place." The little spirit knelt next to a wall, tracing meaningless shapes in the frost with a finger. Tears froze to his face. "That means – that means I'm never going to see Naru again, am I?"

 **A/N:** This was a hard theme to come up with something for. But you can never go wrong with sad Ori.

 **8\. Innocence**

Ori hated Gumo at first. The spiderlike creature's theft of the Water Vein was unforgivable in his mind. He had intentionally stolen the key to the Ginso Tree, intentionally kept Ori and Sein from restoring the corrupted Element of Waters. And Ori knew well the horrors the Element's corruption caused.

Long ago, when the forest first went blind, his and Naru's first warning sign was the water turning bad. Streams turned dark and murky, ponds choked with dead fish, inky purple scum staining the banks where the water level had fallen. After Naru died, when he staggered through the forest alone, he'd seen what happened to creatures that tried to drink it; rotting bodies, surrounded by the dried-out carcasses of flies and beetles that had tried to scavenge off their remains and been poisoned too. Ori himself had fallen in the water three times. Once, only his leg and tail were submerged, but the poison still burned through his skin, and he was soon dragging the leg uselessly behind him until he found a life shard. Another time, he went under completely, and it hurt so badly that he forgot which way was up, couldn't stop himself from screaming, and sucked in a lungful of water. The third time, thanks to the life cells he'd collected it wasn't quite as bad against his skin. He got out in time, he thought, but he'd swallowed a little of it. It took almost half the day before he finally died, and even after coming back at the Soul Link he threw up again just from the memory.

That death was Gumo's fault, too. It only happened because Ori was chasing him, trying to recover the Water Vein. The gumon had taunted Ori, led him into traps, and even pulled the ground out from under his feet. When he finally caught the thief, he thought, he would make him pay by burning him to ash. Gumo, he thought, had become no different from the Corruptions.

But as Ori scrambled onto the rocky ledge and saw Gumo's helpless form pinned beneath the same rockslide he had set off to try to get the spirit crushed, all that hatred melted away. Ori's heart was pounding in his chest and his fur standing on end after the death-defying chase through a shower of boulders. In that moment, he only saw another creature in pain. No, that wasn't quite true: in his mind's eye he saw himself, legs crushed by a falling block trap and waiting for death. The traps were probably more of Gumo's work, he knew, but right then it didn't cross his mind. Instinct took over. He bounded to the rock pinning Gumo's legs, and he pulled with all his strength.

It wasn't the smartest decision, he realized a little later. He had no way of knowing his act of kindness would give Gumo a new spark of hope. He could have only freed him after making him tell him where the Water Vein was. And he'd come close to pulling the boulder over on top of himself during the rescue. But he knew he'd done the right thing. And much later in his journey, when Ori started to realize why Gumo had given in to darkness, and cursed himself for ever hating him, Sein used the story to remind the young spirit what his true nature was.

 **A/N:** This one was hard to come up with an idea for, but I finally settled on Ori's rescue of Gumo. He moved that rock _immediately_ , without having time to think about the consequences. Put someone under so much pressure that they act purely on raw emotion like that, and you'll know their true feelings… maybe? I feel like I've seen a quote like that somewhere.

…the other idea I had for this prompt was Ori discovering obscene Gumon graffiti in the Forlorn Ruins (inspired by the abundant real-life ancient Roman graffiti, much of it obscene, found in the ruins of Pompeii) and not understanding, and Sein trying to explain / lie blatantly to protect his innocence. That might have been funny, but I'm glad I went with this instead; it's better characterization and fits the tone of the game better.

The deaths mentioned here will be covered again later.

 **9\. Drive**

Naru wept as she trudged through the burning forest, cradling her child's unconscious body. When she awoke in the cave, with Gumo watching over her and Ori gone, her first thought was his safety. Gumo told her of Ori's quest – he didn't know that much since they had never actually said a word to each other, but he told Naru of Ori's fall from the Ginso tree, and how when his kind's home collapsed he feared the worst, but soon after he saw twin points of light in the sky over the valley, riding the winds toward Sorrow Pass. They both knew to restore the third element, Ori would have to brave the fires of Mount Horu, and Naru wanted to follow, to do something, anything, to protect him, but she was too large and slow to get through the gauntlet of lava flows and burning trees. Yet, despite the danger she knew she was in, she believed that when – or if – she saw him again, it would be a time of joy. But now, the only happiness she felt was that he was alive at all, and even that was overshadowed by worry.

She hadn't seen Kuro strike him down, but she had heard him scream, then abruptly fall silent, and when she saw him lying there, motionless, she thought for a moment, as any mother would, that she had lost her light. Even when she picked him up, his breathing and heartbeat were so faint that she could barely feel them. She knew he was alive only because of his glow, burning as bright as if a star had fallen to Earth. But now, the glow was fading. Naru knew Ori was close to death, and the only one who could save him was his true parent, the Spirit Tree.

The fires surrounding the tree quickly went out, and it appeared to Naru as if a path had been opened ahead of her in particular. As rain began to fall on the scorched meadow, she carried Ori towards the same light that had claimed Kuro's life. This light, too, was fading, but for a different reason. Sein, the eyes of the Spirit Tree, was back in her rightful place, and her connection to Ori was severed, but in the moments before Kuro's sacrifice she'd seen how badly he was hurt. She dimmed the Tree's light as much as she dared while still putting the fires out and freezing Mount Horu's lava. Even so, as Naru came closer to the tree, head bowed to protect her eyes, she knew she couldn't stay there for long. She, too, was a creature of the dark. She would have to leave him again, even if only for a little while.

And yet, Naru's tears weren't tears of joy or worry, but of sorrow. Having seen the Tree's power from so close, she had complete faith that he could save her – no, his, or perhaps their child. But the state Ori was in now was heartbreaking. Kuro's talons had opened up huge, bloody wounds, and from his ragged breathing and the way his body folded unnaturally as he lay there in her arms, she was sure many bones were broken. But Ori's panicked escape from the great owl had done as much damage as Kuro herself. He was cut and scraped in dozens of places from jagged lava rock, tree bark, and thorns. One ear was torn, his paw pads and the soles of his hooves were cracked and blistered from climbing over superheated rock, and the skin of his nose was peeling off. Drops of splattered lava had burned holes in his fur, and underneath the glow, patches of his coat were singed black.

Kuro's attack might have put Ori's life in the greatest danger, but it had been so fast and so vicious that the little spirit had been knocked out before he knew what happened. But the other wounds couldn't have all happened at once. Each one represented a misstep, a stumble, or a place where the only way forward was through flames, or thickets, or scalding water. But each also represented a moment where Ori, the same Ori who had once been stuck in a tree all day after he got a splinter in his paw, refusing to climb down, had gotten back up and kept running. That time, he had finally jumped from the branch into Naru's arms when thunder rolled in the distance, and perhaps this time too fear had overcome pain. But she knew from Gumo that Kuro had attacked Ori before, flinging him from the top of the Ginso Tree. And with her nest right above the Forlorn Ruins, it seemed likely that he'd met her again there. He had to have known what waited for him in the heart of Mount Horu, and yet he'd still gone in.

Ori had always been a stubborn child, Naru reflected. Fearful, sometimes – storms especially terrified him – and he rarely strayed far from her side, but sometimes he would be so fixated on a task that everything else seemed to vanish for him. Multiple times he had tried to climb a tree, and gotten scared halfway up when he looked down or a gust of wind caused the branches to sway, but refused to give up until he made it to the top, and then wouldn't leave the ground for days afterward. When she first taught him to weave grass and twigs into baskets, he spent an entire day weaving, unravelling, and re-weaving them until he finally got the pattern right, and when he finished it he was so hungry and thirsty he broke down in tears. That stubbornness, Naru supposed, must have kept Ori going, through losing her, through Gumo's traps, through all the hardships of the journey, until he was finally knocked from the sky with only one hurdle left.

But Naru didn't know the half of it. All the burns and cuts and broken ribs only showed the pain of one life. And Ori had lost hundreds.

 **A/N:** Writing Ori is an interesting challenge because usually when I write fanfiction I'm working with characters who either have very well-defined characterization (main characters in shows or movies), or none whatsoever (OCs, customizable video game protagonists). But Ori has a few moments that define him. Going out and gathering the fruit to try to save Naru… the way he looks around nervously when he's lost in the forest near the end of the opening cutscene… choosing to save Gumo… and the fact that he eventually succeeds in getting to the ending. I choose to treat the Soul Link as canon, and assume he dies about as many times as a typical player getting through the game the first time.

Fun Fact: horse hooves, which are what Ori's are closest to, actually have a "soft" fleshy inside – the frog and the sole – which touches the ground and bears a significant amount of wait. Essentially they're thick calluses, not that different from a cat or dog's paw pads. So Ori really is being burned by the superheated rocks in Mount Horu, the same as a creature with regular feet or paws would be.

 **10\. Breathe Again**

The last thing Ori remembered was wandering through the forest, lost and alone. It had been two days… two days since Naru's soul left her. He knew it was two days because the sky had gotten lighter and darker, but the sun hadn't come out. Two days without food, water, or sleep. There was nothing to eat, no clean water, and whenever he thought about shutting his eyes, dark, shadowy things moved at the edges of his vision, stalking closer and closer.

Ever since he'd left Swallow's Nest, left home, all Ori had done was walk, or sometimes climb or crawl. Sometimes he paused just for a minute, to catch his breath or try to see where he was, but he didn't stop moving for long, because he was afraid if he did, he would turn back. He would go back to his home, to his mother, he would curl up next to her, and he would die waiting for her to wake up.

But that wasn't what she wanted. He knew that. She'd given him the last piece of fruit so he could live, and no matter how much he wished that she had eaten it herself instead, and maybe he'd still have had the strength to climb that tree, and she'd have had the strength to last until he got back, he knew he couldn't change anything. So he had to keep living, no matter how much it hurt.

He didn't know where he was going. This was a part of the forest he'd never been in before. The old parts were all dead. This part was too, or at least almost all dead, but he had to keep hoping there was something beyond it. At first, he tried to look around, and sniff the air for signs of food or water, but soon he was too tired to think of what lay ahead, and he started going in aimless circles. But he still felt something calling him, a blue light in the distance like the light on the night the sky was lit ablaze. Somehow, it felt like home. And slowly, through his backtracking and circling, instinct pulled him towards it.

It hurt to keep walking now. His legs ached, his neck hurt from the effort of keeping his head raised, and sharp thorns had stabbed into the soft parts of his hooves, making them bleed. When he felt his nose, it was dry, as dry as the fallen leaves that now covered the ground.

Ori knew his strength was failing. Even his mind was starting to go; he cried out for his mother, even though he knew she could never hear him. The silence of the forest mocked him, and teased him with faint crackles of branches somewhere he couldn't see, yet frighteningly close. Any moment, he knew, something could burst from the darkness. But now he was close to the light. He knew where it was, and he was sure that eventually he could reach it if he just kept making his legs move, one hoof in front of the other.

But he couldn't. Brambles blocked his path; he tried to find a way around them, but all there was was a small gap that seemed big enough to squeeze through, but turned out not to be when it was already too late. He stumbled and fell, sharp thorns tearing through his skin, and rolled down a hill. He couldn't get up, his legs and tail wouldn't move no matter how hard he tried. Even then he crawled, dragging himself along the fallen leaves and rotten, splintery logs one inch at a time. But he could see his arms, shredded skin taut against the bones and fur matted with dirt and blood, and the faint light slowly growing dimmer, and he knew he wouldn't last much longer. It was all for nothing, he thought as his vision faded to darkness, his body started to go numb, and he slumped to the ground, with no strength left for anything but breathing, and soon not even that. He couldn't save Naru… he couldn't even save himself.

And yet… now that last memory was a haze, like a dream he'd just woken up from. He slowly pushed himself upright, not feeling his arms shake anymore. He was on the same log, if anything more rotten. The light was now as clear as the moon off in the distance, an enormous tree, with beautiful white flowers dotting the meadow separating him from it, but he no longer felt the desire to go to it. He got to his feet. He could stand again… what happened? He'd been so weak, and yet now he felt… almost normal. Not as good as normal; he was still hungry, thirsty, and crushed under the weight of grief. But the hunger and thirst were just an annoying twinge, and his body didn't hurt anymore. His mind was clear again. He was still scared, still lost and all alone, and still longing to hear Naru's voice or feel her arms around him, but he knew what he had to do: just keep moving.

Ori shut his eyes, took a deep breath of the cool night air, and hopped off the log. There was a new light ahead, a fainter one that he couldn't see, but he could feel himself being pulled towards it. And this time, he knew he could reach it.

 **A/N:** This prompt, I knew the scene, but it took a while to figure out how to do it justice, how to capture the pure despair Ori must have felt.


	2. Chapter 2: Themes 11-20

**11\. Memory**

Ori never told Sein about the flashes of memory he got from the Ancestral Trees. He figured the same thing happened to her, only maybe she could control it a bit more. After all, she immediately knew the identity of the fallen spirit, and would occasionally tell him something about how they'd died. He supposed perhaps she recognized them by the unique feeling of their light – it was slightly different for each tree – but since they had all died after Kuro had taken Sein from the Spirit Tree, he didn't see how she could have known, say, that Tatsu had fallen from the cliffs of Sorrow Pass.

If Sein did see the last memories of the fallen spirits like he did, Ori thought, there was no point in telling her, since they saw the exact same things. And if she didn't, it would be just one more painful thing to explain.

When Ori first laid eyes on Fil's tree, he saw the ghostly image of the spirit, silent and still. Then again, a few paces further on, as if he were looking at her through closed eyes and occasionally blinking them open. It was the first time he had ever seen a creature of his own kind, besides his own reflection. The images vanished if he looked at them too hard, but he could see the pain in the translucent spirit's face and in her posture. Even before hearing Sein's explanation, he knew that this was a place of sadness.

He gently laid his paw on the tree, and shining blue tendrils of light wrapped around him and lifted him into the air. For a brief moment he was afraid, but the light felt warm, and comforting on a level as deep as the knowledge that breathing was good. It felt like Naru's arms around him. He felt the presence of another creature, and he knew that she meant him no harm. But then the memories came. The sounds of the forest vanished, and in a flash of blue light, the secluded hollow was gone. He saw, and heard, and felt, brief fragments, like a half-remembered dream. Running, his heart pounding in his throat, his hooves burning. A great shadow behind him, and a cold wind and the sound of enormous wings. Leaping into the air, his tail lashing behind him to keep his balance and his paws and hooves finding just the right spots on the tree trunk ahead to spring off it and climb over. Then a searing, stabbing pain in his side, crawling under a fallen log, and hearing an unearthly screech. Lying there for a while, and then crawling out again. There were other fragments of the same bounding climbing technique, but they all felt like they were from much farther in the past. Fil never did it again, she didn't have the strength. Ori saw through her eyes as she limped down an overgrown trail in the Sunken Glades, picking her way past brambles and spines, now in a place that looked familiar. The memory went blank, then picked up again with her paddling through foul-smelling water, dragging herself out, and forcing herself forward with the last of her strength, until she collapsed in the hollow. Then Ori was back in his own body again. Strength surged through him, but in his mind the memory of Fil's death remained.

The other Spirits' last gifts came with fragments of memories too. Ano gathered a ball of light between his paws, forcing more and more power into it until it exploded in a wave of flame. But the Corruptions surrounding him were too numerous, and keeping them at bay with blast after blast drained away his energy until he was too exhausted to use even a Spirit Flame, and they closed in on him and tore him apart. Leru could jump without touching the ground by pushing the air itself away at high speed, but when her spine was broken by a falling boulder, she could only crawl to where her tree now stood and wait for death to claim her. Reem tried to climb through the inside of the Ginso Tree, as Ori did, to restore the Waters, but broke through into a now-vanished pocket of corrupted water, releasing a poisonous flood. Ilo's strength, too, was no use against the poisonous water, and he died of thirst in the middle of a swamp. Eki slowly starved, lost in the endless darkness of the Blackroot Burrows, and Sol succumbed to grief after her brother vanished. Tatsu, too, was lost, deceived by the mists of the Forbidden Woods as she searched for her brother, pushing on even though the fall from the heights of Sorrow Pass had broken her arm and taken her ability to climb. Eventually, her calls for the already dead Atsu attracted too many Corruptions for her to fend off.

It was hard watching the others die, and knowing nothing he could do could change their fates. It was hard feeling the fear, the pain, and the despair of their last moments. But Ori was no stranger to death, not anymore. He had gone through everything they had, but as himself, feeling _everything_. And with every tree he visited, the fallen spirits' final gifts only strengthened his resolve to restore the elements, so their deaths would not be in vain. They had all put their trust in him, shown him the secrets of their abilities, because he was Nibel's last hope.

But nothing… _nothing_ could have prepared Ori for the memories he saw when he stumbled upon Kuro's mountainside nest, and he made the mistake of touching the last egg.

 **A/N:** "Hmm… the Ancestral Trees giving Ori new abilities is one of the only times in the game when he actually looks kind of happy and confident. Lemme ruin that for him too." – My basic thought process.

I mean, not really, but I was kind of thinking about how Ori getting skills from the Ancestral Trees actually worked, and based on the ghostly impressions he gets from some locations (Fil's tree, Lost Grove, and Kuro's Nest), it seems like he can essentially see fragments of memory from other creatures. So I had the idea that he essentially experiences the spirit _using_ that skill, and that's how he learns to do it himself. But he also experiences their deaths.

 **12\. Insanity**

"You know, they say the definition of insanity is trying the same thing many times and expecting different results," Sein said.

Ori scowled. He leapt himself into the air again, twisting to redirect a ball of poison from a spider Corruption and ascend even higher. His paws just barely touched the wall above, but it was enough to flip backwards away and gain a few more inches of height, then airjump back to the wall. He bounced further and further up. A tree root dangled almost within his reach, but the overhang was too steep, and he slipped on the slimy, moss-covered rock. He tumbled back to the ground, landing heavily on his back. He let out a gasp of pain as the thorn bush pierced his ear, and for a moment stared up at the spines, realizing just how close they'd come to his head.

"…Maybe there's not a way to get up there-"

"Shut up!" Ori panted. He rolled to his feet, narrowly avoiding a shot from another spider. "It's not impossible – I know if I can just grab that root, I can do it. If I can make them both shoot at me at the same time, maybe I can get to that other ledge, and then…"

Movement to his side caught his eye. He jumped again, but the spiders were uncooperative. The ledge remained well out of reach, and he was even farther from the tree branch.

"Ori, you've tried it at least twenty times, and you're only tiring yourself and making it worse. You've already died twice. Let's just move on."

"If you were the one getting cut and stabbed and poisoned, you'd care about getting Life Cells too!"

Ori tried the jump another time. As he fell, he saw another glob of poison flying up at him. He flipped himself into position to reflect it downward. Finally, after all this time, he was up high enough that it would launch him past the root! But the thorns' poison was starting to take effect, as was exhaustion. He timed the reflection poorly, and the ball caught him in the face, sending him tumbling helplessly into the bramble again.

"…Okay… you were right…" he said dejectedly at the Soul Link. "Let's move on."

 **A/N:** Inspired by watching multiple LetsPlayers try WAY too hard to get that one out-of-reach item.

Ori really is a stubborn little creature.

 **13\. Misfortune**

Most of the time, Ori had decided, dying was his own fault. There was a sense of perspective that came with being able to try again after a fatal mistake and see the danger he'd missed the first time around. And usually, it was something he should have, or at least could have, avoided. Sometimes the crucial moment was a simple misstep – slipping, losing his balance, or even blinking at the wrong time. Sometimes it was an error in judgement – panicking and trying to escape a group of Corruptions without knowing what was ahead of him, or forgetting to look overhead for unstable rocks or slimes clinging to the ceiling of a cave, or not realizing how much faster he ran out of air trying to fight off angry fish than swimming normally. Occasionally, his death was actually Sein's fault – mostly early on, like when she accidentally said right instead of left when warning him about spikes around a corner, or when she scouted a little too far ahead and left him unable to use Spirit Flame when a group of Corruptions snuck up on him.

But there were times when Ori couldn't help but believe Nibel had it in for him. Perhaps a wiser creature could have foreseen that the rot and Corruptions had blocked most of the outlets for the Element of Waters, and restoring it would rapidly fill the entire Ginso tree. And perhaps a Gumon inventor could have predicted that his kind's architecture would react poorly to years of neglect combined with the weight of unnatural amounts of ice and snow bearing down on it. But _both_ of the Elements immediately trying to kill the one who restored them was just unfair.

 **A/N:** This is another of those prompts where it was easy to come up with the theme – poor Ori is unlucky as hell – but hard to figure out how to articulate it.

 **14\. Smile**

It was about a third of the way up the Ginso Tree that Sein noticed she'd never seen Ori smile. At least, not genuinely. There were a few moments that came close, like when he sometimes laughed after just barely dodging a needle or glob of poison, when he caught himself just before landing on a blob of spines, or when he finally made it through a difficult sequence of jumps, but it was more a mixture of nervousness and relief at not dying than actual happiness. There was the contented expression he made when he stepped or crawled into a spirit well, or had his wounds healed by a life shard, but again that was really just relief from having the weight of pain and exhaustion lifted away. He marveled at the sheer size of the Ginso tree, and at the newfound mobility the gifts of the lost spirits gave him, and (sarcastically) at the elaborateness of the traps around Gumo's hideout, but it was always just a brief moment before his soul was clouded over again by fear, or intense concentration, or the ever-present sadness.

No spirit Sein remembered was like that. They were usually a fairly cheerful species, playing and exploring and telling each other stories. They mourned the dead, and sometimes fretted in times of scarce food, harsh winter, or incursions of creatures from beyond Nibel that threatened the balance of the forest, and sometimes just had bad days, but eventually they'd be back to their usual selves. But Ori… actually, if she thought about it, he reminded her of the way Eki and Sol were wrapped in a dark cloud of despair after Naru disappeared. And really, that was it. Naru was gone, and her loss had ripped Ori's heart in half. He was still a child really, he still needed the comfort and protection of a parent, and try as she might, Sein couldn't give it to him. She couldn't even keep him alive, Sein thought bitterly. Ori told her he'd lost count of how many times he'd died and been brought back by the Soul Link. She said she'd lost count too, but that was a lie because she was worried the truth would discourage him. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine if she counted when the Spirit Tree had first brought him back. He had plenty of reasons to be unhappy.

The two of them slowly made their way up the tree, and by the time they reached its diseased heart, night had fallen outside. Twenty-nine deaths became fifty. They finally restored the Element of Waters, working together to sear away the Corruption choking it, and they somehow made it out of the tree ahead of a surging flood. Kuro was there waiting for them, and Ori descended the tree much, much faster than he had ascended it. He fell so fast that Sein couldn't keep up; all she could do was watch helplessly as the great owl dived after him, and as he struck a branch and bounced off into the canopy where the trees were too thick for Kuro to follow. Gumo saved him from the Corruptions that gathered around his motionless body, but all Sein could do that night was hope he would be okay. The Soul Link was deep underwater now, she knew. If Ori died then, it would be for real.

"There's no time to lose, we must make haste!" Sein said when Ori finally woke. She could see the toll the quest was taking on him. The sooner the other two elements were restored, the better, she thought, not just for her, the Spirit Tree, and the survival of Nibel, but for him. But as soon as she said it, she regretted it. She watched Ori's gaze wander from side to side, his mouth hanging open in wonder. Thornfelt Swamp really was beautiful, she thought. She'd forgotten just how beautiful. There were still a few Corruptions around, and the unnatural tangles of thorns hadn't all gone, but the sun shone, the grasses and the trees had come back to life, and the waters were crystal clear. For the first time, she watched a real smile spread across Ori's face. His light seemed to shine brighter, and he practically skipped along the path through the marshes. But when the first really dangerous patch of brambles appeared, the smile vanished, replaced again by the same look of apprehensive determination.

"Let's go," Ori said. He took a deep breath, shifting his weight to prepare for the jump.

Sein made a decision. "Wait!" she called. Ori stopped just in time.

"Huh?" One pair of ears folded against his head as he looked back at her, then scanned the path ahead again. "What's wrong?"

"Maybe we should explore this place first," Sein said. "You never know, you might find something you'll end up needing if the journey ahead gets worse." But she knew that he already had.

It had already been years since the night of the blazing skies, years since the Element of Winds had fallen silent deep in the Forlorn Ruins. It could wait a few more hours.

 **A/N:** A little bit of not quite fluff. The Thornfelt Swamps after you restore the Ginso tree are just so… peaceful. So pretty. And the area gives you such a sense of fulfillment: after the insanely difficult Ginso Tree escape and the intense cutscene with Kuro, it gives the players a rest and makes them feel like they've really accomplished something.

 **15\. Silence**

Nibel was not normally a quiet place. In the old days, there were always birds chirping, or crickets, or the sound of breeze rustling the leaves of the trees, or the distant babble of a brook. Most of those sounds were gone by the time of Ori's journey, but there was always _some_ noise. Sometimes the dead leaves clinging to the branches still rustled, other times the sound was a Corruption creeping up behind Ori. In the Thornfelt Swamp, and in the dried-out Ginso Tree, even before the element was restored poisoned water still flowed, and in the caves water dripped from the ceiling. In the valley, and in the narrow canyons and cliffsides of Sorrow Pass, and even in the frozen ruins of the Gumon city, the wind howled in his ears. And at Mount Horu, branches popped and crackled as they burned, pools of water and mud bubbled and hissed, and even the lava itself made a noise as it flowed, continuously tearing apart and crunching together the thin crust that flowed on top of it.

But now, Horu's slopes were completely silent. It was winter, the winter after the forest's restoration. Trees had recolonized the lower flanks of the mountain, but up near the summit only grasses and lichens grew in the scree, cinder, and ash. There was no wind, and even Ori's footfalls were muffled by the blanket of powdery snow that covered the ground. The only thing Ori could hear was his own breathing, and if he closed his mouth the chattering of his teeth. It was ironic, he thought, that the coldest place in Nibel was directly above the Element of Warmth.

Ori shouldn't have even been up there. The mountain was on the outskirts of Nibel, far from the Spirit Tree's light. Even back in the old days, Sein told him, few Spirits ever strayed this far, especially not young ones, and especially not in winter. Yet two adventurous young spirits had gone missing the night before, and hoofprints were found leading up towards the volcano. There was no danger of an eruption anymore, but there were treacherous, unstable slopes to contend with, along with the whims of the sky itself. The Spirit Tree was wiser now than when the storm had taken Ori from him. The skies would not be lit ablaze again. But they couldn't just be left alone up there. Ori was still a child himself, and he didn't like it when anyone acted like he was responsible for the other spirits. The Spirit Tree was their parent, and Sein perhaps an older sibling, but Ori had a younger sibling of his own – probably curled up at home with Naru and Gumo, he thought, wishing he was too. But no other spirit was as experienced as he was, no other spirit was as accustomed to being away from the Tree's light, and certainly no other spirit was faster.

When he set off that morning, the weather was still clear. There was a light dusting of snow on most of the forest, and the air was chilly, but not dangerously so. But things soon took a turn for the worse. The sky was blanketed by thick, featureless grey clouds, and snow began to fall, fat flakes drifting lazily down in straight lines with no wind to swirl them. The lost spirits' tracks were wiped out by the fresh snow, and so were Ori's own. It was a bit past midday when he'd last seen the sun directly, but now he was sure it was setting. All around him, wherever he looked, there was nothing but a sea of grey.

Ori knew there was little hope of finding the lost spirits in the storm. Even in clear daylight, their white fur tended to blend into snow, but now both his calls and their faint light would be lost in the whiteout. He could only hope that they had found a cave or a crevice or even just an overhanging rock to shelter under, and he knew he had to find one too. But it was getting harder and harder just to move. The snow was already past his knees, and none of the skills he'd learned from the Ancestral Trees kept his narrow hooves from sinking right through the soft powder.

But for most of the climb, it hadn't been silent. Ori's kind might not have been equipped for dealing with snow, but there were creatures that were. Pale blue icemoths, creatures not of light or dark but of cold, chirped and hummed as they flitted about, mostly unseen but not unheard to Ori's sharp ears. As the snow grew heavier, they grew more numerous. But when the sky overhead turned black, and Ori found himself in a tiny circle of light, they abruptly fell silent.

Ori stopped in his tracks as well, doing nothing but look and listen. The completeness and the suddenness of the silence were unnerving. _Something_ had to be wrong. But what? The ground underfoot was still, the sky dark and featureless with snowflakes appearing out of the gloom as they got close enough to reflect his light. There was snow, featureless apart from the lumps of half-buried rocks, uphill, downhill, sun-wise, and anti-sun-wise. The silence was absolute.

And then, something moved in his peripheral vision, something too big and too dark to be a snowflake. He spun around, alarmed, but it had vanished. Then another came into view, a looming, shadowy shape just far enough away for its outline to be visible. He tried to back away from it, but his foot slipped on an icy rock, and he fell, half-burying himself in the snow. He floundered to his feet, and the silence was finally broken by a long, low rumble.

The shapes disappeared, but Ori frantically turned from side to side, staring out into the grey. His ears went flat against his head, and his paws shook from more than cold as he raised them, lighting twin sparks of Spirit Flame. This wasn't like the dreams, or the shadows of bushes and tree branches that sometimes frightened him at night, not this time. This time he knew it was real. There were things out there, and they were hunting him.

 **A/N:** When I saw this prompt, I immediately thought… "It's quiet… too quiet." But there's not really any silent time in the game, especially not with the gorgeous soundtrack, so I invented a completely new scene. I don't normally like to set stuff after the ending since I have no idea what the story of Will of the Wisps will turn out to be, but I liked the idea of Ori facing danger all alone.

 **16\. Questioning**

"...Ori?"

"Huh? What is it, Sein?"

"I was wondering… what's it like?"

"What's what like?"

"Dying, I mean."

Ori stopped in his tracks. He stared up at the orb with a look of utter confusion, one ear folded and one eyebrow raised. "What do you mean? Don't you die, too? Since you linked us together?"

Sein's glow flickered slightly. Her triangular pattern shifted back and forth, and Ori had the impression that if she had a body she would be shaking her head. "No. If you die, your Soul Link pulls me back to it, but my light never goes out the way yours does."

"Oh." Ori thought for a moment, and sighed. "I don't know how to describe it. Sometimes it's so fast I don't know what happened, but sometimes I can see it coming –" he glanced down from the branch at a large patch of bulbous, spiny growths that had already claimed his life once, and wished Sein had waited until _after_ he'd made the jump over it to ask, "- and I know it's too late to do anything, so I just shut my eyes and tell myself it'll be over soon. But, I'm always surprised, and scared, and it hurts, and then there's just… nothing. And then I'm back at the Soul Link, and it doesn't hurt anymore, but I feel like it still should..." He paused, carefully shifting his weight and digging his hooves into the bark. He couldn't overthink it, he knew from experience. If he thought about it too much, he'd freeze up and fall.

The little spirit sprang forward, running as far as he could, then launching himself into the air with the help of the branch's springiness. There was a moment of terrifying free-fall as he somersaulted through the air, unable to see his target. He landed in the tangle of branches of the other tree. It swayed dangerously under his weight. He knew instinctively his feet would slip, and grabbed onto a twig with his arms. A shower of dead leaves drifted down, settling on the spikes below. Ori crawled along the limb, not daring to breathe until it was wide enough to stand on.

"Sein… I'm glad you told me," he finally said. "I… I felt horrible when I died because I made a mistake, because I thought I was killing you too."

"Well… still, try to stay alive," she said. "I don't know if it's as bad as dying, but I have to watch you every time, and I don't have eyes to close."

 **A/N:** Sein asks an innocent, but not completely helpful question. Inspired by this fanart on DeviantArt:

art/Lost-and-Never-Found-573205731

Not so much by the art itself (although it certainly inspired other parts of this challenge) as by the artist saying: "...I just realized, Sein must have it _really_ rough whenever she has to helplessly watch as Ori dies during gameplay. I imagine we'd be treated to some snippets of heart-reading dialogue if the game didn't just revert back to the last save point the moment Ori kicks the bucket."

By the way, this is set early in the game, around Hollow Groves before the encounter with Gumo, when Ori has only died a few times, and has been lucky enough to get relatively quick ones.

 **17\. Blood**

Ori knew he was in trouble the moment the gelatinous, spiny mass split in half. He backed away, still lashing out with the Spirit Flame, but he didn't yet have the experience to hit more than one enemy at once with the power, and the massive Corruption only split further, the pieces getting smaller, more numerous, and faster. Before he knew it, he was surrounded. He weaved and rolled back and forth, keeping the slimes away as he slowly whittled down their numbers, but there were just too many.

"Ori, behind you!" Sein shouted, almost in time.

Ori started to turn, but something hit him in the back, throwing him face-first to the ground from the force. He let out a cry of pain and surprise. He couldn't see the remaining slimes, but he kept willing them to die, and the Spirit Flame tore away at them until the weight on his back was lifted.

"Ori? Are you all right?" Sein hovered anxiously over him. Her voice reminded him uncomfortably of Naru's whenever he hurt himself.

"I… think so…" Ori said. But as he struggled to his feet, he nearly doubled over from the pain. He looked down and saw spines, bright red spines protruding from his chest and belly. For a moment, he didn't understand what he was seeing. The slime had struck him in the back, he was sure of it. He felt the pain in his back, but also in the front of his body. Then he realized what had happened.

"Oh, no… no, this is bad." Ori watched the broken-off spines disintegrate into ash. Red liquid started to trickle out of the holes left behind, staining his white fur. He felt something warm and wet running down his back, too. He scanned the little balls of light left behind by the destroyed slimes. Orange, orange, blue… no green. No green. "Sein…" he tried to keep the panic out of his voice. "Where's one of the – the healing plants!"

"Back this way!" Sein flitted off to the left. Her tone made it clear she understood the urgency.

Ori staggered after her, pressing his paws to the wounds in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but his blood kept leaking from between his fingers. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, and as hard as he tried to keep his breaths slow, he was panting like he'd run from one end of the Sunken Glades to the other. He was lucky enough not to be attacked, or have to get past any thorn bushes or the bulbous masses of stationary corruption that often blocked his path, but he could feel himself getting weaker with every step. Finally, he could see the plant, a large rosette of thick, fuzzy, waxy leaves that when trod on released a pleasant green light that could heal his wounds. But the path was blocked by a ledge in the rock. It was barely higher than Ori himself, and he could normally have easily jumped up, but now he wasn't sure if he could jump at all. But he had to…

He tried his best, frantically hopping into the air and trying to grip the smooth rock, but all he managed to do was make the pain worse. Even balancing on his feet grew harder, and after one final attempt he slumped to the ground, leaving bloody pawprints on the ledge.

"Sein… help…" he sobbed, wrapping his tail around himself. "Make it stop… please…"

"I'm sorry, Ori, I can't!" Sein sounded like she was going to cry too. "The Spirit Flame can't break that kind of plant, and I'm giving you all the strength I can! You have to keep trying!"

Ori nodded silently. He tried to get up, but his legs gave way, and he collapsed back into the spreading red puddle. He knew he was dying. It was like the first time, his strength fading away and his senses growing more indistinct. But this time, it was faster, and made worse by pain and fear. The forest started to swim in front of his eyes, shapes melting together into blobs of color. "Sein? Sein, where are you?" he whimpered. "Don't leave me…"

"I'm right here! I'm not leaving you, Ori!" The orb of light hovered so close to his head that she brushed against his ear. "Can you still hear me?"

"Yes…"

"Listen to me, it's going to be all right! You'll come back, you just have to hold on a little longer! It'll be over soon…"

But the little spirit didn't respond. His eyes closed, his body gave one final shudder, and he fell still, his last breath escaping as a quiet sigh. Then his form blurred, and dissolved into a thousand tiny motes of white light. They drifted away, and vanished, leaving only a bright red stain and a trail of bloody footprints.

 **A/N:** …and here's one of Ori's _less_ easy deaths, but still a pretty early one, somewhere around the Sunken Glades.

Whenever you write fanfiction of a game, you always have to decide what mechanics you treat as "real" and which ones you treat as abstractions for the sake of playability. For example, Ori and the Blind Forest is has 2-D gameplay, but unless you're playing Pac-Man or Tetris, 2D games are always simplifications of a three-dimensional world. Hit points, and dying instantly when you run out of them, are something I almost always treat as an abstraction. HP is a very simple, yet very elegant way of representing injury, and for good reason. Back in the old days, games were all either pen-and-paper or on primitive computers which couldn't really handle complex damage tracking, but even in most modern games having your health be reduced to a single number massively reduces the workload on both players and developers. And instant death? This is, in most cases, a VITAL abstraction; in real life fatal injuries still often take at least a few minutes to kill you, but if you had to spend several minutes watching your character bleed out while being helpless to save yourself every time you died, 99.9% of games would be unplayably frustrating.

But in fanfiction I can do whatever I want, which in this case means making adorable, innocent little creatures suffer a horrible, traumatic death. Repeatedly. Because Soul Links are one mechanic I _am_ treating as real, because (a) I like writing about the psychological effects of dying repeatedly and remembering it, and (b) because I hurt every character I love.

 **18\. Rainbow**

Sorrow Pass was one of the highest places in Nibel, and Thornfelt Swamp one of the lowest. But they were surprisingly similar in that they were both the wettest. From Swallow's nest, Ori could sometimes see the red cliffs, but just as often they were shrouded in cloud. He knew clouds were wet, but despite that he always thought of the pass as being dry, because in his mind it was connected to stories about the red soil of the desert far beyond Nibel.

But now that Ori was close enough that he could touch the red cliffs with his own paws, he realized he'd been totally wrong about them. The sky overhead was cloudy, but it was only a thin layer at the very top of the plateau somewhere above him. It was raining… but it was raining _upward._

The Valley of the Wind was named accurately, but there at least the winds were somewhat horizontal. The wind swirled around itself in different directions, though, and by carefully steering his feather through the places where the wind changed direction and angling it just right, Ori could catch it and use it to lift himself higher. But in Sorrow Pass, the maze of slot canyons funneled the already strong winds into updrafts so strong that Ori had to be careful to not unfold the feather completely; if he didn't it could be ripped from his paws, or he could be flung upward into overhanging crystalline spikes. The reason the rock was bare, he knew now, was because the wind had scoured the soil from it. Small streams ran down the canyon walls, and in places springs trickled from the sandstone, and the wind snatched at the water, and the spray from waterfalls lower down in the valley, and turned it into a thin, misty spray that was constantly flying up towards the clouds. Soon Ori's fur was soaked. The air was chilly on its own, though not freezing, and with the damp and the constant wind his ears and paws grew numb from the cold.

The cliffs weren't bare, either. Splotches of moss and lichen covered the rocks, and in the cracks, or in the sheltered spots where a little bit of soil hung on, shrubs and flowers and even trees grew, sometimes protruding sideways from a vertical wall of stone.

Nir had lived here once, and Tatsu. Ori couldn't imagine how. Before the forest went blind, he knew, the Corruptions wouldn't have been there, nor the spikes or the beams of searing yellow false-light. But he couldn't imagine why anyone would live in a place where the wind constantly howled and screamed and tore at your fur, and the plants had tough, waxy leaves, and you couldn't get anywhere without scaling a cliff face smoother than tree bark.

But there was a moment that redeemed it a little bit, even before he broke through the top layer of cloud and could see all of Nibel spread out below him. He had just taken a wrong turn and died, and slowly crept in the other direction from the Soul Link, carefully watching for the deadly beams. He rounded a corner, and found himself on the edge of a sheer drop. The wind lifted his ears up over his head. He clung to the wall instinctively, even though he knew that if he fell he could use the feather. But off in the distance below him, there was a waterfall, and a cloud of spray flying up past him, perfectly catching the sun behind him. And around it, a perfect ring of colors – or half of one, stretching from up near the clifftops, left and downward, and then right again to the cliff below, just above the waterfall. Red and orange and yellow and green and blue and purple, and if he looked closely more rings of green and purple just inside, and far outside another ring barely visible. Ori gasped in amazement. It wasn't the first time he'd seen a rainbow, far from it. But he'd always seen an arch of colored light, never the bottom half. Now he saw for the first time that he was looking at a circle.

 **A/N:** I portrayed Ori's flight in the Valley of the Winds with Kuro's feather as basically being dynamic soaring, a method used by birds, RC gliders, and occasionally full-sized gliders to stay aloft and lift themselves higher in the sky. In-game the wind just goes straight upward, but strong, _sustained_ updrafts aren't that common IRL: you mostly find them in storm systems or in places like Sorrow Pass where something funnels the wind into a very narrow channel. And while it can't be done in a 2D game like Ori, dynamic soaring seems like it could be pretty fun as a video game mechanic if you had a good way of visualizing the air currents.

 **19\. Gray**

Nibel was home to three basic kinds of creature. First, there were the creatures of Light, like the Spirit Tree and all his children. In fact, it could be said that the light was the reason for Nibel's existence; the Spirit Tree's roots spread throughout the forest, and his power, along with that of the three Elements, kept the rain falling, the rivers full and clear, and the winters mild, allowing life to flourish. The light made the forest a paradise, but light and dark were opposites, deadly to each other. Creatures of Darkness still lived in and around Nibel, drawn to its abundance. Naru harvested the fruit trees of Swallow's Nest, and before that she had lived in the Lost Grove. The Great Owl Kuro nested at the summit of Mount Forlorn, and hunted in the forest below, where food for her chicks was plentiful. But they and all the others like them maintained a respectful distance from the Spirit Tree, until the night when even that distance wasn't enough.

Most of Nibel's creatures, though, were of the third type, sometimes referred to as Grays. Instead of consisting entirely of Light or Darkness, their souls consisted of a mixture – though not necessarily an equal mixture – of both. They couldn't feed off either, or be healed by them, but nor could they be harmed unless the power was focused into a destructive attack like Spirit Flame.

Guardian Spirits had a limited ability to feel the souls of others. With other creatures of Light and Dark, their souls were clear, and Ori could pick up Naru's love and worry, the dying anguish of the Spirits of the Ancestral Trees, and Kuro's terrifying hatred, like seeing the sun in a blue sky or the moon and stars at night. But Grays were like staring into clouds; the alternating swirls of light and dark blended together made it impossible to distinguish their feelings.

That was why Ori never felt Gumo's fear of Kuro's wrath, the fear that had possessed him to follow the young spirit until he was sure he meant to restore the Ginso Tree, then to steal the Water Vein and lure him into the caverns of the Moon Grotto. Gumo hoped the traps wouldn't kill Ori, only frustrate him into giving up or slow him down until Gumo could think of a way to hide the Vein so well it could never be found. But if he had to be killed to stop him, Gumo thought, that was the way it would be. Even if his people had exiled him, he didn't want them to get hurt. He knew the Great Owl nested above their city, above where they guarded the Element of Winds. After all this time, if the best minds of the Gumon hadn't found a way to restore it with the stored Light they harnessed, he figured, then either it was impossible for anyone but the kin of the Spirit Tree… or they'd realized what he had, that if they succeeded, Kuro would slaughter them to stop them from bringing back the Waters and Warmth as well. Either way, Gumo believed that the Guardian Spirits had all been dead for years, and the Spirit Tree's strength would soon fade. They had to learn to live without Light. But this new spirit was dangerous. If he somehow managed to restore the Element of Waters, Kuro would strike, to stop the restoration of other two.

But Gumo's nerve failed him when the little spirit pulled the rocks from his legs without a moment's hesitation. He couldn't feel his soul, but he could see the determination in his eyes, and the compassion, and the fear. No… his nerve didn't fail him, it returned to him. Reflected in those eyes, he saw his own cowardice. This spirit was risking his life to save Nibel, risking his life to help him and his people, and he'd tried to stop him, perhaps even kill him, because he was afraid of what _might_ happen. If his family had seen him, he knew they would have been ashamed. The Gumon were the guardians of the Winds, and they would never throw away a chance to restore it out of fear.

When he watched the young spirit vanish into the Ginso Tree, though, Gumo began to doubt again. It was hard to tell with Guardian Spirits, but this one seemed just a child, and Reem, one of the most clever and experienced of them all, had gone into that tree soon after the water turned bad and never come back. Had he sent the spirit to his death? When he found him again, unconscious at the foot of the tree, and heard Kuro's screams of fury, he worried that he had doomed his kind.

Gumo returned to the Forlorn Mountain, deciding that the consequences of violating his exile were worth it to warn his kind, but he found a frozen wasteland where his home had been. He still had a sliver of hope that somehow, his people had managed to harness the power of the stored Spirit Light to keep the city warm, but that vanished when he crossed the threshold and discovered their frozen bodies. The bitter-cold winds produced by the corrupted Element itself had blasted through the underground city, tearing machinery apart. The city's ventilation shafts were shaped to run air from the outside over banks of heaters which could be activated in a blizzard, but they were useless against frigid air coming from the _inside._ But Gumo saw things Ori and Sein didn't. Half-finished blueprints scratched on the walls, scattered fragments glowing red hot, and every Spirit Light Container but one gone, exhausted in a last-ditch effort to keep the Gumon alive until they could erect partitions to redirect the icy wind outside. They had kept trying, right to the last breath.

Gumo watched silently from below as the spirit stood on a broken platform before the frozen Element. Sein, the eyes of the Spirit Tree, stood beside him. Gumo heard her say his name… Ori. He'd overheard it before, but now he realized why it was so familiar. He'd heard about the child, lost in a storm not long before he was banished from his home. He heard Sein say what he already knew, that he was the last of his kind. And then, he heard another voice, barely audible over the howling of the wind. "Then… I guess Gumo and I are the same. He lost them, just like I lost Naru. But he doesn't have anyone like you to guide him… maybe that's why he fell into darkness. Do you think when all this is over, we could…"

Naru… all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. And Gumo, with the pain of loss still fresh, made a decision. Ori and Sein would bring back the Light, but he would bring back the Darkness. He knew it was possible. The Gumon knew the truth about Light and Dark: they were two sides of the same leaf, both the energy of life. Since they were Gray, neither would harm them, and with the right technique they could change one into the other. But neither was life to them either. Nothing in the world could bring back the other Gumon. Gumo had learned that the hard way, last time. But Naru was Dark. This time, it could work – no, it would work.

 **A/N:** Holy hell. This started as just being about the light, dark, and gray creatures headcanon, but I'd already kind of written about that before, and it ended up turning into a backstory for Gumo.

 **20\. Fortitude**

"Ori!" Sein cried as the beam of scorching heat knocked the little spirit out of the air. It seemed like a glancing blow, with only his arm and his ear actually going into the beam, but it was enough. There was a flash of yellow light, and he tumbled from the sky. His right hand still clutched the unburnt half of Kuro's feather, which flapped uselessly behind him. His other arm, as far as Sein could tell, was gone above the elbow, and half of his ear had vanished as well. Smoke trailed from the feather, and from the charred stumps, as he plummeted into Mount Horu's lava. He landed facedown, his body breaking through the thin crust and submerging halfway in the gooey molten rock. A second later, and he was hidden in a cloud of steam, but Sein was already turning her attention away. She couldn't bear to watch him die, not like this. She could only hope the reason she hadn't heard a scream was that he was already unconscious when he hit the lava.

"Are you okay?" she asked a minute later, beside the overhang the Soul Link was safely tucked under.

"I'm fine," Ori said breathlessly, shaking his head and pushing himself to his feet. "Didn't see it… hurt so much I couldn't breathe… but I'm fine," he gasped. "Let's go."

Ori wasn't fine. He didn't remember more than a brief moment after landing in the lava, but burning was one of the worst ways to die. Normally after coming back it took him a few minutes to get his bearings, and for his mind to actually convince itself he was alive. He set off without waiting for sensation to come back to his arm and replace the phantom burning. This time, the pain wasn't all an illusion either. He hadn't been able to find enough life shards to heal himself before he placed the Soul Link, and the pads of his hooves were still burned from standing on superheated rock a short ways back.

This wasn't a place living creatures were meant to exist. Even with all the life cells Ori had collected helping protect him, the heat was almost unbearable. Constantly panting had dried his body out, and he was as thirsty as he'd been inside before restoring the Element of Water, so thirsty his head hurt, his throat burned, and every jump brought a moment of faint dizziness like the one which had led him into the lethal beam. He found himself missing the cold mist of Sorrow Pass, or even the Forlorn Ruins.

Sein could tell even without feeling the fear still in his aura. She could see the way he looked at his arm while he moved it, because he couldn't feel where it was. She could see the way he hopped from foot to foot and winced with each step. She could see the foam he wiped from his mouth, and even the cracked, dry skin of his nose.

But neither of them said anything. A change had come over Ori ever since he'd seen Mount Horu's building fury from the top of Sorrow Pass. Sein felt a new intensity in his aura she hadn't felt since the Ginso tree. He barely paused to rest now; even after dying and coming back he just got back up and kept moving. Sein knew he was only making things harder by pushing himself until his reflexes were dulled, but when she'd tried to suggest taking a break he only snapped at her that there was no time, that Horu could erupt at any moment. It was strange, Sein thought, that at the start of their journey she was the one trying to hurry them along, but now she wanted him to slow down. She knew he had a point, though. It was impossible to tell how much time they had left. Even before the final explosion came, rising lava flows could make it impossible to reach the Element of Warmth.

Ori's impatience had another reason, too. It wasn't just fear of an eruption. It wasn't just that resting barely helped when the air around him was almost too hot to breathe. The last several days – he didn't even quite know how many anymore – had been a desperate struggle to stay alive, but now the end was finally in sight. One way or another, he told himself after each death, it would all be over soon. He just had to keep going a little bit longer.

 **A/N:** "Fortitude. Noun. Courage in pain or adversity." – Oxford English Dictionary. This prompt is kind of similar to how I interpreted number nine, and I hadn't set a chapter in Mount Horu itself yet, so I decided to make it about basically the same thing. And actually, I think this theme has become one of the overarching themes of the entire story. Courage isn't easy. It's not something you just have or don't have, it's something you have to create for yourself.

PSA: Living creatures DO. NOT. SINK. IN. LAVA. Basaltic lava, which is the kind almost always shown in fiction, is three times denser than your body. Andesitic and rhyolitic lavas are a little bit less dense, but also much thicker and don't flow very well on a human-sized scale. This is approximately what would happen if you fell into a lake of lava, as demonstrated by throwing in an approximately human-sized bag of trash: watch?v=kq7DDk8eLs8. Your remains would stay approximately at the surface, which would violently bubble due to the steam produced as your body fluids boil. That fall would be instantly fatal due to the impact alone – even falling into water from that height normally kills you – but Ori doesn't take fall damage.


	3. Chapter 3: Selections From Themes 21-100

**Author's Note:**

Hey, folks! I lost interest in this fic for a while, and I really couldn't think of anything for a lot of the prompts in the 20s. I had a few more prompts written, but not enough to justify posting a chapter. Then seeing the new trailer for Will of the Wisps gave me another spark of inspiration. So for this chapter, I'm doing something a bit different. I've written ten more prompts from the list that caught my interest, scenes that I knew I wanted to cover, and put them in an order that hopefully varies the emotional impact so it isn't all suffering.

 **23: Cat**

Evidence in favor of Ori being a cat:

Looks like one.

Can climb walls.

Doesn't like water.

Has nine or more lives.

Messes up easy jumps, then casually walks away and pretends nothing happened **walks back from the Soul Link and pretends nothing happened.**

Evidence against Ori being a cat:

Cats don't have hooves.

No cat could possibly resist having a floating orb of light following them around and never try to catch it.

* * *

A/N: A silly prompt deserves a silly story.

 **24: No Time**

A/N: This is the one you've all been waiting for, the Ginso Tree Escape! For full effect, put an extended version of "Restoring the Light, Facing the Dark" on as you read this one.

* * *

Ori breathed a sigh of relief as he waited beneath the corrupted Element of Waters. The climb up the Ginso tree had been grueling, with spiny balls of Corruption and tangles of thorns everywhere, mysterious blue portals leading from one part of the tree to another, and occasionally poisonous water running down the walls or raining from the ceiling. But it was finally over. They'd made it to the heart of the tree, and after many failures figured out a way to use Reem's Bash ability to get through the last of the barriers and burn away the choking, bulbous growths covering the Element. All that remained was to restore the Element itself.

He didn't understand exactly _how_ Sein did it, but with a flash of light, she turned the sickly purple orb to the same bright blue as herself. The tangle of rotted branches surrounding the Element became strong and healthy, and water, _clean_ water, poured from it and vanished into the depths of the tree. Ori gingerly stuck his hand into the edges of the stream. It didn't burn! For the first time in a while, he remembered just how desperately thirsty he was. But the memory of the horrific result of accidentally getting some of the corrupted water down his throat was too strong, and he didn't yet have the nerve to take a drink.

Then the shower of water became a roaring torrent. All around him Ori heard creaks and groans, and then an ominous rumble that traveled up his legs. The entire tree was shaking. He stepped back cautiously, half-expecting the floor beneath him or the ceiling above him to collapse. "What's happening?" He asked, too softly to be heard over the noise of the water, but it was more to himself than to Sein. Then he saw it, over the edge of the shelf of wood he was standing on. A boiling, seething wall of water, rushing up towards him.

Sein saw it at the same time as he did. "Ori, watch out!" she called. "The water's coming, get to high ground now!"

For a moment, Ori was frozen in place. Did he run? How? Where? The paths to his left or right eventually lead to the outside, but they were slow and difficult, there was no way he could make it out in time! He thought he might have seen some loose branches in the chambers though. Should he try to grab onto one? But Sein's words snapped him back to the present, and just as importantly, caused him to look up. There, above the Element, where he'd just cleared away the Corruption, was a narrow vertical shaft! It was too high to jump to, but there were lantern flowers, the kind sturdy enough to launch off of. In a split-second, he judged the position of the two lowest ones, chose the nearest one, and sprang into the air just as the water reached the shelf. Even with a midair jump he barely reached it. With Reem's power, he flung himself further upward, reflecting off one flower, then another, until he shot upward through the shaft into the next chamber.

The rest of the Ginso Tree had taught Ori never to rush around corners or through portals, because often there was nothing but walls of poisoned spines waiting for him, or if there was a safe place to land it required careful timing of his second jump to reach. But now there was no time to be careful, no time to think about his next move. The instant his hooves touched the ground a frog Corruption, either oblivious to the danger or too intent on killing him to care, lunged at him, knocking him over and pinning him under its weight. He twisted onto his back, kicking it with all his strength and forcing the sticky webbed fingers from his throat, then knocked it away with Bash, using the momentum he gained to somersault back to his feet. The only way forward now was through a portal, but the water was almost upon him. With the cold spray at his back, he ran through.

Ori kept going, leaping over spikes, dodging corruptions, and bounding up walls, the water always close behind him. Occasionally he'd hear Sein shout a warning over the roar of the water, but if he hadn't already seen the danger it was already too late to react. The first two times he got lucky, but the third time, a glob of poison from one of the burrowers knocked him from the air. He landed heavily on his side, and felt his leg twist under him, but he forced himself to his feet again. Spines blocked the path up; if he could jump over them he could just barely make it to a climbable wall, but it was too far. The burrower would attack him again, though. If he reflected its shot downward he could make it. But it didn't, not in time. He felt water lap at his ankles, glanced down, and a moment later he was swept off his feet. He tumbled over and over in the swirling current, struggling to surface but not even knowing which way it was. There was a horrible, stabbing pain, something struck him in the chest so hard the air was driven from his lungs, and he blacked out.

The Ginso Tree filled in stages. One part would fill, and then the immense weight of the water would break through a passage choked by Corruptions, or a tangle of debris, and all at once it would surge down into a lower portion, dropping the water level below the Element for a few precious seconds when the Soul Link could bring Ori back. But he knew this time, he only had so many chances. Eventually, the water would reach the base of the tree, and it would fill completely, leaving the Soul Link deep underwater, so deep there was no hope of swimming to the surface. And swimming in the floodwater was impossible. It wasn't like a rising lake, it was a roiling mass of foam and debris – branches, logs, spike balls, and even the bodies of Corruptions it had swept away – that was impossible to so much as float in. He died twice more in the water. Once he was held under an overhang by the current and drowned, once he was dragged under and dashed and crushed against the walls, the spikes, and the swirling debris.

Usually, when Ori came back at the Soul Link, it took him a while to catch his breath, get his bearings, and wait for the phantom pain of whatever had killed him to fade. But now there was no time. His hooves touched the ground with a splash, and immediately he was airborne again, stretching his arm out to grab the lantern flower with Bash. Each time, he'd figured out more of the route, and he ascended by memory, not hesitating for an instant at the portals, and leaping without waiting for the Corruptions to throw themselves at him or launch their balls of poison. But he was slowed down by exhaustion, and before long he made a mistake, trying to reflect a bolt of false-light from one of the flower-like corruptions a split-second too soon. It hit him, and almost knocked him into the churning maelstrom below, but he caught himself on a wall, and kept running.

The small head start Ori had gotten on the flood was gone now. The water was right on his heels, and still gaining on him. He was on unfamiliar ground now, but he didn't dare pause for even a fraction of a second, knowing the next death could be his last. There was no time to catch his breath, no time to put down another Soul Link. All he could do was run. He stumbled and fell, sometimes landing on spines and crying out from the agonizing feeling of the poisoned spears being driven into his body, but sheer terror propelled him onward. Sometimes a wave caught him and bowled him over, and sometimes he missed the landing on one of the bouncy blue plants, and the swirling water surrounded him, but the lantern flowers, and even the projectiles the Corruptions sent at him, were his salvation, ripping him from the jaws of death. Every step hurt, but every step was another second of life.

Then, just as suddenly as the desperate escape had started, it was over. He could see moonlight at the end of another vertical shaft. He made one final jump to reach one last set of lantern flowers. The water caught him, but the narrow channel accelerated it to such speed that it simply picked him up and flung him out into the night sky. He crashed down on top of the tree, and for a while he just lay there, not sure if he had the strength to move. He was completely soaked, his fur plastered to his body. He was bruised, bleeding, and completely exhausted. But somehow, unbelievably, he was alive.

"Ori? Ori, are you all right?" Sein asked. Ori looked up and saw her hovering anxiously by his side. He nodded silently, and slowly stood. Water was bubbling out of the top of the Ginso tree all around him, and showed no sign of stopping. He knew now, for certain, that if he'd died in there he wouldn't have had another chance. He couldn't climb back down through the inside of the Ginso tree, he thought as gentle raindrops, so different from the violent spray of the flood, started to fall. But now he was safe. He could rest until he'd recovered enough to put down another Soul Link, and he could carefully make his way down the outside of the tree.

But, unknown to Ori, he'd already stayed at the top of the tree for too long. He had no time at all. Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and a pair of white eyes appeared in the darkness, burning with hatred.

* * *

A/N: My headcanon is that Ori collected every single Life Shard in the upper part of the Ginso Tree, and still escaped with only one left.

 **45: Illusion**

"Uhh, Sein?" Ori asked. "Didn't we pass this tree before?"

"I don't think so." Sein floated closer to the tree he pointed to.

"It looks familiar..." Ori approached the tree. He hopped a short ways up the trunk and onto a low branch. "See this hollow? And the three spinebushes around it making it look like a face? I swear we saw it before!"

"But that tree was next to one covered in green lanterns, remember, Ori? This must just be one that looks similar."

"I guess..." Ori scampered further up the tree, up into the top branches, with the help of a burrowing Corruption that emerged from another hole in the bark and sent globs of poison he could reflect and jump off of. But as he ascended into the fog that hung over the Misty Woods, he started to feel dizzy and lightheaded. Looking down, the ground and the trees around him seemed to pulse and change in shape like a breathing creature. "This is so creepy..." he muttered. "It's this way, right?"

"No, I think this way." Sein drifted in a direction a bit to the left of where Ori had pointed. "I remember there being a shrine in the north of the Woods. The Gumon Seal might be there."

"How can you tell which way's North? We can't even see the sun."

"I just have a feeling."

Ori followed Sein, leaping through the treetops as far as he could, then jumping and using Kuro's feather to glide through the mazes of tangled branches until he made it back to the ground. But as soon as his hooves touched the earth, his vision blurred and he stumbled. He rubbed his eyes. The path he thought he'd seen from the air now seemed to lead in a completely different direction! "...Sein?" he asked. "Did it just… change?"

"I think it must have, Ori. I can't tell when, but it did."

Ori tiptoed along the path, leaning backwards to compensate for the steep slope. "Are you sure I'm going the right way? Downhill is back towards the cliffs, right?"

"It is, but you're going _uphill_."

"Huh?" Ori squinted. The trees around him seemed to wave like blades of grass in a nonexistent breeze. No, Sein was right… he _was_ going uphill. But he could swear this wasn't the direction they'd been going in before, nothing even close. "Sein?" he asked nervously. "Which way is North now?"

Sein hesitated. "Umm… I'm not sure, Ori."

Ori groaned. "Just admit it, Sein. We're lost! We're never going to find the Gumon Seal in a place like this!" he turned around. "There's got to be another way into the Forlorn Ruins! Let's just turn back!"

Then he stopped cold. The path behind him… that wasn't the way he'd remembered walking. What he'd sure he'd passed as clear forest was now choked with Thorn Mushrooms.

"I don't think we _can_ turn back anymore, Ori," said Sein. "If we can't find a way to clear the Mist, we won't be able to find a way out either!"

* * *

A/N: I just realized I hadn't set a single theme in the Misty Woods! That's a tragedy given how creepy the area is!

 **91: Drowning**

Ori was a good swimmer. His body couldn't float effortlessly like Naru's, but he could still tread water, and dive, and even keep up with some of Nibel's slower-moving fish. Before the water went bad, Naru trusted him enough to let him swim in the slow river near the cave unsupervised. On sunny days when the water was warm, he sometimes spent hours just jumping off the pier, or the rope-suspended logs, and climbing back up.

But such a small creature could only hold his breath for so long. Before, he'd never really tested his endurance. Now though, in the newly cleansed waters of the Thornfelt Swamp, he didn't have a choice. The water was clear, and a comfortable cool temperature. It was already tempting to descend into the depths, but after his experience in the Ginso Tree, Ori was still wary. At first he was cautious, turning back and heading for the surface as soon as the urge to breathe started to get strong. But parts of the swamp were so overgrown with thorns that it was impossible to get through above water. He had to thread his way through the submerged caves, trusting Sein to guide him to the hidden air pockets.

The waters were dangerous even aside from the risk of drowning, though. The current was slow, but still enough to pull him into thorns if he wasn't careful. Ravenous fish-like corruptions still stalked the depths, and there were floating bulbs like underwater spinebushes which exploded and shot needles in all directions if he got too near them. Ori had already died three times in the water – once to the fish, once to the thorns, and once to a set of crushing blocks in an underwater passage. He was determined to not let there be a fourth.

As Ori swam downward toward a dense bed of reeds and corals, he was already nervous. The cave entrance was pretty far down. He would have to wait there while Sein checked it for air pockets, but he couldn't stay there for more than a few seconds before he had to come up for air again. His ears popped from the pressure. He steadied himself near the bottom, flicking his ears back and forth – the signal to Sein to move. She could talk underwater since she spoke directly into his mind, but he couldn't. Her light disappeared into the cavern. _Hurry_ , he thought. His lungs were already starting to burn.

Then, in the corner of his eye, there was movement. Danger! A long, serpent-like fish with wide fins and whiskers and a mouth full of irregular teeth like a wall of thorns burst from the mouth of another cave he hadn't seen through the plants obscuring it. A Corruption. It lunged for him. He twisted upside-down in the water and kicked with all his strength, dodging its snapping jaws. _Sein!_ He screamed mentally. _Where are you? Help!_ Sein was there in a few seconds, and together they raked the monster's side with Spirit Flame, but Corruptions didn't know fear. It lunged again, driving Ori down into the reeds. Its immense tail churned up the sand and mud into a dense fog. Ori somersaulted this way and that, trying to keep away from its jaws by sound alone. Its teeth grazed his arm, adding blood to the cloud. He kicked at its eye, making it let go of him, but as it spun around the current from its tail struck him and turned him over and over in the water. Finally they finished it off with a Charge Flame, but Ori realized he was completely surrounded by murky darkness. He couldn't see his paw in front of his face, or Sein's light. Which way was up? Could he breathe out and tell by the bubbles? No, the monster had already driven most of the air from his lungs. His chest was burning badly now. He couldn't lose any more air!

"Ori! Ori, where are you?" Sein called. Ori couldn't answer. "I'm above the cloud! Are you lost? Follow my voice!" she said.

But Ori couldn't follow her voice. He didn't hear it in his ears, he heard it in his mind, and it seemed to come from every direction at once. The pain in his lungs got worse, and he panicked. He had to move somewhere, anywhere, now! He picked a direction and started to swim as fast as he could. Either he'd reach the surface, he'd escape the cloud of murk, or he'd touch the bottom and know he had to swim the other way.

Then slimy, ropy things were all around him. He felt the bottom, and twisted around to try to swim away, but they caught his hooves. Frantically he kicked and flailed, trying to free himself, but only succeeded in tangling himself even more and stirring up more sediment. He couldn't see Sein, but she was close enough that he could use Spirit Flame. But it did nothing to the reeds wrapped around his body! Spirit Flame only hurt those that meant him harm, but these were just ordinary plants! Part of him knew he should be trying to carefully untangle himself, but he needed air _now!_ He fought even harder, but couldn't move an inch! His lungs felt like they were on fire.

"Ori! Ori, I'm right above you! Can you see me? Swim towards me!" Sein shouted.

Looking up, Ori could see her light faintly among the trail of bubbles that was now escaping his nose and mouth involuntarily. The murk was clear enough now that he thought he could see the surface, but he couldn't take it anymore. He spasmed, losing the last of the air… and sucked in cold, deadly water. The choking and involuntary thrashing didn't take long to subside, and his body drifted limply in the reeds grasp, slowly sinking down the last few inches to the bottom.

* * *

A/N: I'm back after several months of doing other stuff, and my quest to make Oribuse a subgenre in this fandom continues. Drowning seems like such a _hopeless_ way to die. The final stages might be relatively quick, but being trapped underwater, knowing it's going to happen and being unable to do anything about it until your willpower gives out and your own reflexes finally make you aid in your own death by inhaling water seems so cruel. And poor Ori couldn't even scream.

 **41: Teamwork**

"So, which way now?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Ori. Nibel has changed since I was taken from the Spirit Tree. The corruption has taken over so much..."

"Okay..." Ori sniffed the air. "Then just keep going North and West since the Caverns are that way, right?"

"Yes."

They moved quickly but cautiously forward, picking their way past the spinebushes and doing their best to avoid the sight of the more active Corruptions. Even with Ori getting better at springing off of walls like he'd learned from Fil's memories, they couldn't avoid them all the time. Their enemies were drawn to their Light.

...

"This way, Ori! Down the gully! I'll keep them away!"

Ori sprinted past Sein, ears back. "There's too many of them! Just scout ahead so we don't go down a dead end again!"

"Okay!" Sein shot ahead again. "There's a jump coming around the bend!" Almost before she could say the words, Ori had reached the place. He sprang into the air, somersaulting forward and clearing the mass of spines growing at the base of the ledge so closely that he had to flatten his inner pair of ears to avoid brushing them, but landed on his feet and kept running. The frog-like Corruptions weren't as fast as him, but they could jump higher, and would have no trouble clearing the obstacle. "There's a fork here!" called Sein. "Go left!"

Not wanting to try to make the sharp turn at a run, Ori hopped sideways as he approached where the path ended in a T. Planting his hooves against the right wall, he kicked off it in the opposite direction and flew around the corner. But a wall of spines blocked his path! He landed short of it, and tried to stop himself, but the ground was slick with damp rotted leaves. His hooves flew out from under him and he slid into the spikes.

"Oww!" Thanks to Ori's fall, the worst of the spines had gone above him, but he was still bleeding as he scrambled to his feet and limped away from the spinebushes.

"I'm so sorry, I meant to say right!" Sein hovered close to Ori. "I'm not used to this. Are you all right?"

"I think so..." Ori said, but his voice was shaking and he wiped away tears. "Oww..."

A frog Corruption leaped down from the top of the gully, so close behind Ori that he felt its sticky hand brush his tail as he jumped away. The rest of its group rounded the corner. They were too close now to keep avoiding. Wordlessly, Sein flew behind him again. He couldn't see the frog, but he knew it was in range. He gave Sein the spark of will to destroy the Corruption, she focused it, and a tongue of Spirit Flame tore through its body. It kept moving, making another flying leap. Ori doubled back, letting it overshoot him, and they finished it off as it landed. Still retreating, they dealt with the remaining corruptions in the same manner. There was a life shard in the smoldering remains. Ori felt the pain disappear, but he still instinctively parted his fur with his fingers to check that the wounds were really gone. Bounding up a tree root, he escaped the gully and finally saw the entrance to the Caverns.

…

"Look out! Above you!" Sein called. Ori looked, just in time. He hopped into the air, twisting his body and barely avoiding the poisoned needle from the spined slime lurking on the ceiling above him. It bored a hole in the cavern floor. Ori knew if he'd been any slower that would have been his head. He hadn't even heard the faint sucking, squelching sound of its movements over the grinding of the corrupted machinery echoing around the caverns. The slime seemed not to care that it had missed, and more needles began to drip poison as it prepared for another shot.

This time, Ori avoided it easily, but up ahead, he would have to burn away several of the younger spinebushes that were still destroyable by Spirit Flame and make his way up a treacherous set of wall jumps. He couldn't pay attention to both at once. He had to kill the slime. Without thinking about it, he jumped as high as he could, and without a word between them Sein ascended even further, bringing them into range. Spirit Flame couldn't reach very far, and while Sein was its point of origin they had to be relatively close together to use it. They dislodged the slime from the ceiling. As soon as he landed Ori had to run to avoid getting hit by it as it fell, then jump over another needle, but on the ground it was an easy target.

…

"Which way?"

"Left!"

"...are you sure this time?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

…

"Ori! I see a keystone, just up -"

"Shh!" Ori crouched stalk-still. His ears slowly wiggled from side to side, trying to pinpoint some sound Sein couldn't hear.

"What is it?" she finally whispered after a few seconds.

"I don't know. There's a noise like water dripping, off that way… but like it's something sticky, with bigger drops, and over it there's a buzzing, and a crackling like fire." He straightened up. "Let's go check it out."

"Wait!" said Sein. "If it's dangerous, we should get to the keystone first, then put down a Soul Link. The last one was pretty far back."

Ori nodded. "Good idea." He still wasn't used to the idea that dying was something that had to be planned for. Sein could carry certain objects once Ori had touched them, like keystones and the map stone fragment they'd found, close to her, but when Ori died and she was pulled back to the Soul Link, her grip was broken. They'd already nearly stranded themselves by leaving a keystone on a bed of spikes, and Ori was only able to retrieve it with great difficulty by fashioning a noose out of vines and bark. But once he'd put down a Soul Link the stones would appear there with them. "How dangerous is the way to the keystone?"

"There's a lot of thorns there, and I see three of the needle-shooting slimes. You'll have to be careful."

"I don't think I have the strength to make more than one. Do you think I should put it here, or wait until I've got the stone?"

"Here. We'll bring the stone back to it before we move on."

"Oh. Yeah."

…

"Oh. Uhh… that's dangerous." Ori watched the sizzling purple-and-orange bolt of false-light descend along right along the tree trunk he needed to climb to continue. He looked around. There wasn't any better way up. He waited until the bulbous flower-like Corruption above him sent the next bolt down to verify the timing. He could make it. Now, before it shot again! He jumped over the bolt as it hit the ground, and started to make his way up the trunk. The rotten bark peeled away in his claws, and he found himself sliding back down. He regained his purchase and started up again, but he'd wasted too much time. The flower fired another shot. On reflex he jumped away, towards the rock wall opposite.

"Ori, wait! There's another-" Sein started to warn him, but she was too late. Ori landed nimbly on the rock wall, right in the path of the bolt from a second floor. With no time to dodge, he was struck, and knocked from the wall down into the embrace of a spinebush.

"Okay..." Ori groaned as he observed the pair of flowers after reaching the spot for the second time. "These are harder than the ones that shoot along the tunnels, but I think if I time it right I can jump across, then back before the other one fires." He glanced up at Sein, and the two keystones orbiting her. "Good thing we didn't go this way first."

* * *

A/N: Ori and Sein's teamwork slowly improves as they make their way through the Sunken Glades and Spirit Caverns!

Imagining _Blind Forest's_ platforming puzzles with full 3D freedom of movement can be a little difficult sometimes. The ending was inspired by a moment in Cryaotic's playthrough about 8 minutes into part 2.

 **89: Through the Fire**

Ori skidded to a halt as the blazing tree fell in his path, his hooves digging into the thin layer of ash that covered the ground. He immediately looked from side to side, then up. There was no way around it – to his right was a vertical cliff face, to the left more flaming bushes. The cliff, maybe he could get up, but -

"Look out!" Sein shouted. "Kuro-"

Ori reacted instantly, flinging himself backwards and diving into the shadow of a flat boulder. Just in time. He was showered by ash and soil as Kuro's talons whipped past, gouging deep furrows in the ground where he'd been standing an instant earlier.

"That was close!" said Sein.

Ori didn't have the breath to answer. He was panting - his body desperately trying to cool itself in the blistering heat - and choking on the smoke and ash that filled the air. His pulse was hammering in his ears, and he clutched his chest, feeling like his heart was going to burst through his ribs at any second. "Is it safe?" he finally gasped, unable to see the sky from his vantage point.

Sein was pressed against the ground beside him, trying to keep her light out of view. She floated out for a second, then darted back under cover. "Not yet! She's circling around, but she's watching! I'll say when, but you'll have to move fast!"

Ori peered out. He'd have to go up the cliff – the surface was rough enough to climb or wall-jump off of, but it would take several jumps to get enough height to clear it, even if he could jump off the lanternflower hanging from it. He got a brief glimpse of the Great Owl's wings as she flew past. There was no way… he'd never make it in time! "We've got to go back!" he cried. "Find another path! If we make it back to the hollow tree -"

"Ori, the lava will reach the tree any second! We can't go back! Go now!

Still on all fours, Ori tensed. Go where? He couldn't move forward! To the left, fire was everywhere, but in front of him was a wall of flames! If he dashed out using Eki's power, then jumped as high as he could with Nir's, he could gain enough height to clear the flames, then use his second jump to build up horizontal momentum and use Kuro's feather to glide safely over. But there was no time! He knew how quickly Kuro could react – she'd kill him if he stood still that long! He was going to die here! He was going to die for real – the Soul Link had been swallowed by Mount Horu. He whimpered in terror.

Wait! There was a way… maybe. He couldn't clear the flames entirely, but there was a space between the branches, a keyhole no wider than twice his own height. It was still too high to reach with normal jumps, but if he angled his Charge Jump right, and used his second jump to get a little extra speed, he could fly right through. But flames still licked at the window to safety, blocking his path.

Ori gritted his teeth, or tried to. He was shivering so hard they chattered. Even if he did it right it would hurt. His hooves and paws were already blistered from climbing over newly cooled boulders of lava, and his ears had been singed by near misses with flying rocks. But his fur was at least damp from jumping into a pool of near-scalding water to escape Kuro's clutches. He could survive… probably. He dug his hooves into the ground and placed his paws ahead of him, bracing himself for the leap. He let the power build up, counting in his head. One… two… three!

* * *

A/N: And this is how Ori got some of the injuries mentioned in Theme 9.

 **67: Playing the Melody**

 _D, C#, B, A, F…_

Ori's ears flattened at the discordant sound and he grimaced. He turned the little wooden flute Gumo had carved over, checking the position of his fingers on the sound holes. Too low… He took a deep breath, bringing the instrument to his mouth again and remembering the tune of the old lullaby. Nibel's Light creatures and the Gumon each had their own writing system. Neither of them wrote down music, and didn't give names to the notes. There was no need. It was easy enough to tell by ear.

 _D, C#, B, A, F#…_ Ori took a breath. His small lungs couldn't play more than a few notes without stopping. _D, C#, B, C#…_ the soft, sweet sound filled the cave. Ku, the newly hatched owlet, snuggled closer to Naru's side. Ori took another breath. The tip of his tail twitched back and forth with the rhythm.

 _D, C#, B, A, F#, E, D, E, F#…_

 _D, C#, B, A, F#, D, C#, B, C#, D, E, F#, F#, F#, E, A, F#, D, E, D, C#, A, B._

* * *

A/N: I was working on an easy-mode arrangement of the music from this game that I can actually play despite being bad at piano, and I had the idea of Ori learning to play his own theme. I imagine it would be hard to play any kind of flute with only six fingers. Gumon have it easy: if they sat down they could play with their toes as well.

 **43: Dying**

Sometimes, dying was surprisingly easy.

That didn't mean it actually _was_ easy – it never was – but sometimes, it didn't hurt as badly as Ori expected it to. If he thought about it, it usually was the surprising deaths that were the easy ones, the ones where he was dead before he even realized the danger. When he was caught off guard by a falling block trap, or the stronger beams of false-light, usually the only thing he had time to notice was the sudden movement in his peripheral vision, or the blinding flash and sensation of heat, before he found himself back at the Soul Link. Or perhaps, if Ori thought about it a different way, dying was _always_ easy. It was just nothing. The hard part was what came before, and the less of it there was, the better.

Most of the time, Ori had enough time to realize that he was going to die, and more than enough time for it to hurt. Sometimes, like when he'd fallen headfirst into a bed of spikes, or when he already knew he'd mistimed the traps and was racing to get out of the way, he knew it would happen, but it was over so quickly he didn't really feel anything. But more often the spikes would go through his body, or his throat, or his eyes, but it wouldn't kill him instantly, and for a few terrible seconds he'd struggle despite knowing instinctively that he had no chance of surviving, and when he came back it would still hurt for a little while because his mind was convinced that he _should_ still be injured.

After he came back, once he was trying to navigate through the hostile, corrupted ruins of Nibel again in search of the Elements, Ori could think of dying as an annoyance, an inconvenience. He could make himself take risks, learning the safe paths by trial and error, by telling himself that a mistake wouldn't be permanent. But once the fatal blow was dealt, even if he knew mentally that he would come back, no amount of telling himself that, and no amount of reassurance from Sein, could make the fear and pain go away, because his body was never meant to just lie down and accept death, and it couldn't be convinced to do so.

It rarely lasted longer than a few minutes. Drowning, or bleeding to death, or suffocating after spines tore through his lungs, didn't usually take longer than that, and if he was hurt too badly to be able to move and eventually get to a life shard the Corruptions would usually descend on him and finish him off. Every time, he'd fight as long as he could, tearing them to pieces with Spirit Flame and trying to drag himself out their reach even if he knew it was pointless.

But there were times when he was trapped somewhere the Corruptions couldn't reach, because of thorns and spinebushes, or water, or cliffs they couldn't climb, and Ori begged them for death. Once, in the Moon Grotto as he pursued Gumo, he'd spotted a falling block trap _almost_ in time, and as he flung himself out of the way the stone came down on his legs. He dragged himself away as soon as it lifted again, but his legs had already been crushed into a bloody mess of broken bones and pulped flesh, with fragments sticking out the torn skin. There was no way forward with such an injury. When the pain subsided enough that he could almost think straight, and he could look at his legs without passing out, he wanted to just place his head under the trap and let it kill him instantly, but his panicked escape had carried him over a ledge too high to pull himself up, making backtracking impossible. All he could do was crawl into a corner and huddle there until he finally bled to death.

Even after he learned to heal himself by placing a Soul Link, broken limbs were bad. If he had enough strength left to put down several, he did, but if it was only enough for one or two, he couldn't risk exhausting himself without being healed enough to let him get to a life shard or a Spirit Well. He'd had one close call where he'd done it to try to ease the pain, but one of his legs still wouldn't hold his weight, even after dying trying to backtrack to where he knew there was a healing plant and coming back at the new Soul Link. He'd only been saved when, after five attempts, one of the birdlike Corruptions had swooped down on him, and its smoking remains had given him enough life shards to heal his leg properly.

The poison was the worst. Most of the dangerous things, especially early on, were poisonous – the spinebushes, the slime that leaked from the skin of the leaping frog Corruptions and that the wide-mouthed frogs and the wormlike burrowers spat at him, and the needles and spines of the slug-like ones. Usually it was slow-acting enough that either he'd be able to find a life shard before it got too bad, or something else would kill him first, often aided by his reflexes being dulled. But when the poison itself killed him, it was always slow. Sometimes his heart chest beat faster and faster until his head felt like it would explode form the pressure, then suddenly stopped. Sometimes his muscles seized and cramped until it spread to the ones in his chest and he couldn't breathe. Sometimes it made him see and even feel things that weren't there. At least once, he'd been too weak to cough or even turn his head, and ended up choking on his own vomit. He remembered it happening once – it might have happened more times after he passed out, but he didn't want to even ask Sein.

But Ori didn't think anything could ever be as bad as the time he'd accidentally drank the poisonous water. It was down in the Moon Grotto again, when he'd lost track of Gumo and was starting to fear he'd never find a way out. After sliding down a narrow shaft, bouncing from side to side to avoid outgrowths of crystalline spikes, he found himself on a narrow ledge over a large pond which he imagined had once been beautiful, but now was discolored unnatural inky purple. His first instinct was to backtrack, but the walls were treacherous, and above him he could see slithering Corruptions, the kind that shot poisonous needles, gathering. Going back up would be dangerous. So would crossing the pond, but there was a log hanging vertically from a vine a bit more than halfway across. He knew it would be difficult even with the midair jump he'd learned from Leru, but he could reach it.

Ori looked apprehensively down at the murky water. Occasionally bubbles broke the thin film of scum on the surface. The banks were dotted with fish skeletons. In most places the water just turned into marsh, mud choked with rotting reeds and spinebushes that had sprung up in their place. It almost seemed better to imagine there was a bed of spikes below him. But there were only two hard jumps, instead of many.

Ori bounded up the rock wall behind him until just below the lowest spikes, then pushed off it just in time to avoid a poison needle. His leap carried him far out over the pond, and as he felt himself start to fall he used the second. It seemed like it would be enough, but only barely. He twisted in midair to grab the log, but he was falling too fast! His outstretched hand only brushed it, but his claws couldn't get any purchase on the rotting wood, and with a scream he plunged into the filthy water.

After what happened the last time he fell in, Ori knew he had to shut his eyes, but he wasn't quick enough to close his mouth, and the impact forced water up his nose. He could feel himself sinking. He could feel the evil, corrupted water all around him, burning him, but since last time he'd found a couple of Life Cells, and the pain was more of a dull ache. He kicked and clawed desperately for the surface, feeling something slimy brush against him. The moment his head broke through again he sucked in a breath, coughing and choking and spitting out water. Squinting to try to see something without his eyes being burned away, he paddled forward and scrambled up the steep rocks on the other side.

"Ori? Are you okay?" Sein asked.

"I..." Ori gasped. He stood there dripping for a second, then came back to his senses and shook himself furiously, trying to get as much of the foul water off him as he could. He gagged at the disgusting taste and smell of decay. "Think so..." He writhed on the ground, trying to dry himself off further, but only succeeded in staining his fur with more grime. He shuddered. "Yuck..." He tried to imagine swimming in clean water and rolling in the tall grass that grew by the streams and ponds at Swallow's nest, or even just standing in the rain.

"Your nose and ears and around your eyes looks really red," Sein observed.

"I know." Ori shook himself again. "It hurts, but not like last time, and I can still see and walk." To prove his point, he started to jog up the path. Sein followed closely. "As soon as we fix the Ginso Tree, I'm taking a bath..."

Ori had the energy for a Soul Link, and he considered putting one down so he wouldn't have to attempt the crossing again, but something felt wrong. His throat was burning, and he felt nauseous, more than just the smell and taste would explain. It got worse, and worse, and before long he could barely stand up straight. Even after a Life Shard from one of the plants made the burning outside his body go away, it wouldn't stop. Just a few minutes after he'd gotten out out of the water, he fell to all fours, gagging.

"Ori, are you sure you're all right?" Sein hovered next to him. "This is a safe place to stop and rest. Don't push yourself too hard."

"I think I'm going to be sick..." Ori choked out. No sooner had the words left his mouth than he was. It had been days since he'd eaten or drank anything, but bitter, throat-burning stomach acid came up. Even after he was sure there couldn't possibly be anything left in his stomach, the nausea kept getting worse. He collapsed onto his side, tail between his legs. After so much futile dry heaving, it felt like his belly had been stabbed through by thorns, or even slashed open. Every so often a little more liquid would come up. At first it was clear or green, but then it turned red. Blood.

"Ori? Do you think you might have swallowed some of that water?" asked Sein.

Ori nodded, unable to catch his breath to speak he was hyperventilating so badly. He knew he had now. He'd seen the red-black stains around the mouths of the dead creatures that had tried to drink the bad water. They'd all drank more of it than he had, but to them, it was just poisonous. It was worse for Ori; the corrupted water was inimical to his very nature. Even touching it hurt him. Having it inside him, even just the fraction of a mouthful he'd swallowed, started to dissolve his body from the inside out.

It was the worst pain Ori had ever experienced. Even during the moments when the nausea subsided, the burning didn't go away, and all he had the strength to do was lie there clutching his stomach and sobbing. More liquid – some of it blood, some of it still clearer stuff – kept coming up until he was lying in a puddle of it, too weak to so much as roll over of his own volition. He would have been completely helpless if any Corruption attacked him, but as Sein predicted, the place was safe from them. Too safe. None ever found him, and by the time he finally died it had gone from early morning to mid-afternoon.

Ori woke up at the Soul Link – a long way back, above the entrance to the shaft he'd made the mistake of descending – still shivering.

"Are you okay?" Sein's voice sounded like she was about to cry. Or maybe she had been for a long time. Ori knew in the state he was in he wouldn't have known. "I've never seen anything like that… that was scary."

Ori shook his head. He still felt sick to his stomach. He tried to stand, but stumbled sideways off the path and fell to his knees. He retched again, expecting to see blood stain the ground, but just a little clear liquid came up. He ran his paws through his fur and took a deep breath. It didn't hurt anymore. It was just his imagination. He was clean, he was safe, he was dry. "Yeah… I feel better..." he said weakly. He got to his feet again. His legs were still shaking, but that had happened before when he came back, and he knew it would pass. He wiped tears from his eyes. "How long was I… dying?"

"Half the day," Sein answered. "Ori, please promise me you won't go near that water again unless you really _have_ to.

"I promise..." Ori said. Sein didn't need to say anything. He'd rather have faced every Corruption in Nibel at once than go through that again. "Sein, when I find Gumo, I'm going to kill him."

* * *

A/N: It's finally time to write about Ori's least pleasant deaths, including the full story of the incidents I referred to in Theme 8. I torture the poor baby so much!

Most of the hazards in this game, it's fairly self-explanatory why they're dangerous. Everything has deadly spikes, or crushing force, or heat, or is just a fairly big, powerful creature compared to Ori. But the impure water is just so toxic and polluted that touching it kills Ori in seconds. I think the reason is that Ori's a nature spirit, like the Fair Folk in various folklore traditions, so things that are pretty much embodiments of the balance of nature being destroyed are lethal to him, sort of like how in Pokemon the Fairy type is weak to Poison. With that in mind, the water hazards are pretty disturbing. Falling in that would be like falling into a vat of drain cleaner!

 **26\. Tears**

"…The Sunstone we seek, high atop Sorrow Pass," Sein said matter-of-factly. "We must ride the winds, for they will show us the path." She turned her attention away from the narrow tunnel in the rock where the boulders had fallen, blocking Kuro's path. She slowly drifted back along the path they had taken to reach the Gumon's ruined city, scanning for the powerful winds that would carry Ori into the sky. She thought for sure that Ori would be close behind, that in another moment he would be ahead of her. She could sense the fear radiating from him, and expected him to hurry to get as far away from Kuro as possible.

But instead, Sein felt the link between her and Ori growing longer. He wasn't moving at all. She turned her attention back toward him, and found him huddled against a fallen log, his legs, arms, and tail all pulled close to his body. "Ori?" she asked. He didn't respond. "Ori? What are you waiting for? Let's get out of this place!"

Ori silently shook his head. Sein thought she saw tears in his eyes, but it was hard to tell because he was completely soaked. Sein couldn't feel heat or cold, but the ground around them was dusted with snow, and Ori's breath rose into the air as a pale mist. Sein tried again: "Let's get out of the cold. If you stay out here and don't dry off, you could freeze to death again!

Sein wasn't accustomed to paying close attention to the health of the Guardian Spirits. Her closest connection was to the Spirit Tree, and she could sort of understand how it felt to have roots and bark and branches, but she was a being of pure light. Guardian Spirits were beings of light too, and her kin, but they still had bodies of flesh and blood and bone, something completely alien to Sein. At first, she decided that if anything that was wrong with Ori that she couldn't sense in his aura, he would know what to do better than she would. But after being forced to watch helplessly so many times as Ori's body was broken, she had learned a few things from experience.

The streams and pools on the floor of the Valley of the Winds were nearly freezing. Earlier, as they crossed the valley floor the first time, Ori had slipped on an icy rock and fallen into a river, and the cold instantly sapped his strength. He was swept away, unable to swim or even grab a branch to pull himself out, and drowned. Later, as he carefully tiptoed across the thin ice covering a pond, one of the froglike Corruptions leapt at him, and the monster's weight shattered the thin crust and plunged both of them into the water. They quickly killed the frog with Spirit Flame, and at first Ori didn't seem to be hurt badly, but again, his strength soon vanished. Technically, the cold hadn't killed him directly, only dulled his reflexes until he was unable to dodge the ice needles of a crawling slime, but Sein suspected that it wouldn't have been long until he was frozen solid just like the Gumon. And after Kuro found them at her nest, and attacked them, Ori was forced to dive into the icy water again to stay out of sight. Now his small body was shaking like a leaf in a gale, and the water dripping from his fur had formed the beginnings of icicles on his ears. Sein knew every minute brought him closer to death.

Still staying silent, Ori extended his arm and created a Soul Link. "There," he mumbled.

It took Sein a second to understand what he meant, but when she did she was shocked. Technically, if he stayed there and froze to death, when he came back his fur would be dry, although it wouldn't actually warm him up. But Ori would normally _never_ try something like that. He took risks if he had to, but he never intentionally got himself killed. A couple of times he had thrown himself into a pit of spikes or a beam of false-light, but only ever to avoid a much slower death from poison or blood loss. Normally he was reluctant to even use a Soul Link if he was injured more than the small amount of healing it gave him would take care of. "Ori? What's wrong?" Sein asked. "Are you hurt?" She was sure she'd seen the rocks fall far short of hitting him, and he'd been able to stand afterward.

"No…" He said. But the word came out as a breathless sob. And, as the fear started to slowly fade from his soul, Sein realized that underneath it was sadness, deep, despairing sadness, as strong as the hatred that emanated from Kuro.

"Then you have to get up, Ori. I know you feel bad, but letting yourself die like this won't make it any better. It's okay if you need time to rest before we search for the Sunstone, but we need to find a safe place first."

Silence. Sein heard Ori's breathing grow more rapid again, but he didn't get up, or even move.

"Ori? Ori, please…"

Finally, Ori looked up. His eyes were shimmering. "Why are we even doing this, Sein?" he asked. He blinked, and tears ran down the sides of muzzle. "The Sunstone, the Elements, everything!"

"Ori, what are you talking about? You can't give up now, we've already restored two of the Elements! You're more than halfway there!"

"I know… I know, but… why? There's no point!"

"Yes there is!" Sein started to raise her voice. "If we don't bring back the third Element, every living creature in Nibel will die!"

" _What_ living creatures?" Ori asked. There was a hint of anger coming from him now too, but it wasn't like Kuro's. Something was different, something Sein couldn't quite identify. "Everyone's already dead! Restoring the Elements won't bring back the Gumon, will it? It won't bring back Fil, and Leru, and Reem, and Tatsu, and all the other spirits! It won't bring back Kuro's children! It won't bring back Naru…"

"We're still here!" replied Sein. "Ori, we have to bring the Light back, or the Spirit Tree will die. I'll die… you'll die… and you won't come back."

"I know!" Ori shouted, rising to his feet. "I don't want to keep coming back! I can't do it anymore, I just can't! I thought maybe I'd get used to it, but I can't! It hurts every time… sometimes it's at least over quickly, but when it isn't… and every time I know it's just going to happen again…" His legs buckled, and he collapsed onto his side, curling up into a ball. "I just want the pain to stop…" he sobbed.

"It _will_ stop!" Sein protested. "Life will come back to Nibel, and it won't be so dangerous anymore, and the Spirit Tree and I will be able to keep you safe! I know it's hard, but-"

"No you don't! You don't know what it's like! You act like it's bad having to watch, but that's all you do! You don't have to feel any of it!"

For a moment, Sein was angry. She wanted to point out to Ori that she could feel the waves of fear and distress in his aura, and they hurt her almost as much as Kuro's presence. But she knew Ori was right. Seeing him in pain, and knowing there was nothing she could do to save him, was heartbreaking, but she had no way of knowing what it was really like. "I know I can't understand what dying feels like, Ori," she said. "I know it's much worse for you than for me. But I'm trying to make it better. Believe me, if I could trade places with you, I would!

"I wouldn't trade places with you…" Ori mumbled. "You don't deserve this. No one does…" He slowly sat up, but stayed curled in a ball.

"Then why are you making it worse for yourself? Right now, the pain will stop a lot sooner if you just follow me out of the valley. All you have to do is hold onto the feather and let me guide you…"

"No…" Ori whimpered. "I… I should be dead, anyway. The Spirit Tree shouldn't have saved me…"

Sein was so shocked her light nearly went out for a second. "What? Ori, what are you talking about?"

"It's because of me… all of this is. Kuro – Kuro's only trying to protect her child, just like you said…" Ori choked out. His small body shook so hard his teeth chattered, but Sein knew it wasn't just shivering anymore. "The light… I felt it up at the nest. I felt their last memories, just like at the ancestral trees. The light was burning me, Sein! It was burning me!" He took a deep, shuddering breath. "They're dead because the Spirit Tree called out to _me._ And – and that's why Kuro attacked, why she took you, why the forest went blind! That's why the Gumon died… and the other spirits… and Naru… everyone that's died would still be alive if I didn't exist!"

Ori barely managed to get the last words out, and as soon as he did he broke down completely, sobbing so violently he could hardly breathe. His face was buried in his arms, but Sein could see tears dripping from his wrists. She floated closer to him, until they were almost touching. But, as always, his aura held her back just before her surface brushed against his fur. More than she ever had before, Sein wished she had a body, so she could hold him the way she'd seen spirits hold each other when they were frightened or hurt or sad, the way she knew Naru must have held him. But, like Ori said, all she did was watch him cry, and hope that even if her heatless light couldn't warm his body, it would reassure him that he wasn't alone. It was all she could do.

"Oh, Ori…" she whispered. "Listen to me. You can't blame yourself for any of this – _please_ don't blame yourself. Nothing that's happened is your fault! If you're going to blame anyone, blame me. The Spirit Tree and I were the ones who killed Kuro's children. We didn't know… we never meant for it to happen… but if it's anyone's fault, it's ours. You never did anything to hurt any of them."

"That's not true… Naru… she gave me the last fruit… even if everything else went wrong, if I wasn't there she might have…"

"Naru didn't _have_ to take you in," said Sein. "She did it because she loved you. She gave her life because she loved you. And you've already repaid her a hundred times over. You tried to save her… you saved Gumo without hesitating, even though he tried to kill you. And…" Sein remembered something Ori had said, much earlier, when Kuro blocked the path to the Misty Woods. "And you saw the truth about Kuro, even when I couldn't. I didn't know Naru that well, Ori, but I know that she'd be proud of you. And she'd want you to have a chance at happiness."

"I know, but… I don't – don't know how…"

"To be happy?"

"To keep going…"

Sein sighed, and drew back slightly. "I know, Ori…" She watched his light slowly dim and flicker. How much time did he have left? She knew he would come back, just like all the times before. But if he let himself die like this, still with a chance to save himself but refusing out of despair, would he do it again? If _she_ let him die like this, would she do it again? Sein was afraid, afraid that if either of them gave up now, they would never make it to the Element of Warmth. There had to be something, anything, she could do. Then it occurred to her. She could be honest with him. Everything she'd said was the truth, but all she'd thought of were his feelings. And, perhaps, that was her mistake. She knew she couldn't understand him completely, so she'd avoided telling him how _she_ felt. But had that made him think she didn't feel anything at all?

"Ori, can I tell you something?" Sein asked. She took a slight twitch of his ears for a yes. "It's not easy for me, either," she said. "I feel terrible knowing our light caused the deaths of Kuro's children – and you're right, if the Spirit Tree and I hadn't called to you, none of this would have happened. But that's why I still want to go on. I want to fix my mistake. I know restoring the Elements won't bring anyone who's died back, but neither will letting all of Nibel perish. And… I can't do it on my own. I need your help. And there's still one creature left that _I_ can save… you, Ori."

The reply was just a whisper. "Me?"

"Yes. It hurts knowing all of this was partly my fault, but nothing could possibly hurt me more than knowing that mistake caused your death as well…"

Then Sein felt herself being pulled forward again. Ori wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her towards him, pressing his forehead as close to her surface as he could. "Okay…" he whispered. "I'll try. I'll keep going as long as I can… just show me the way."

* * *

A/N: Holy guacamole, what a word count. 2200+ words!

This was the part that I originally wrote this story for, Ori breaking down after realizing that all the deaths in the game were the result of the Spirit Tree calling to him. I originally wanted to write this as a one-shot, but then I had the idea of doing the 100 Themes.

There's no mechanic for Ori taking damage from the cold in the game. But small creatures lose heat _much_ faster than large ones, and I always pictured Ori as having fur like a shorthaired cat, thick and downy but without much "fluff," and without waterproofing oils. Jumping into near-freezing water would be near-instant hypothermia. The entirety of Mount Horu would be hot enough to cook him alive even without touching the rocks too, but lava is almost always treated like that in video games, movies, or TV. I guess Sein's light protects him from the heat a little bit.

I think this might've been the hardest chapter I've written for this so far, because it ended up hitting so close to home. It felt like I was writing a conversation I've had many times before, but I was always on Ori's side. I don't mean survivor guilt, and I've certainly never experienced anything close to as physically painful as repeated violent deaths, but feeling like you're worthless and don't deserve life and the world would be a better place without you? Yeah… puberty with depression wasn't a pleasant experience. I don't mean it was too emotionally difficult to write about, but it was weird writing from the POV of the character trying to talk someone down, and trying to put the feeling into words and somehow do it justice.

There's not much else to say besides, poor Ori. And poor Sein, too.

 **46: Family**

Ori's first sensation on waking was Light. Not in his eyes, but the same warm embrace he had felt in the Spirit Wells, gently enveloping his body and permeating it. It felt like safety. It felt like Home. But at the same time, there was something _off_ , something that felt unnatural. Ori's pulse quickened. A memory flickered by of cowering in the place he had called home, with two other small bodies pressed against his. The sky was burning. He was burning. He could feel the Light tearing through his feathers.

Feathers? No. That wasn't his memory. He didn't have feathers. He had fur. But the last thing he remembered was burning. Everything was burning… he remembered gripping a feather for dear life, gritting his teeth against the pain of blistered paw pads supporting his weight.

Ori opened his eyes, and light flooded them. It was blue – a sunny sky overhead, and twinkling blue lights all around him. Bare branches… he was nestled in a crook between two enormous tree roots. But this was wrong. He was alone.

Everything returned to him in a flash. The Elements! Waters, Winds, Warmth! They'd restored them all, but then Kuro had come. She'd done something to the Element of Warmth. Mount Horu was still going to bury Nibel in fire and ash. The last thing he remembered, he was trying to get Sein to the Spirit Tree in one last desperate attempt to fix things. But then he'd heard wingbeats behind him. He remembered freezing for a moment, realizing there was no time to let the feather go and fall to the cover of the burning forest below. Then there was pain, only for an instant, and darkness.

Ori sat up abruptly. "Sein? Sein, where are you?!" he called. He couldn't feel the connection he'd had with the orb ever since he'd found her lying on the forest floor several days before.

"I'm right here, Ori!" Sein's voice sounded in his head, all around him, as it always did, but he instinctively looked around.

"Where? I can't see you!" Ori said. But he felt her presence. It was a part of the Light that surrounded him. But now he recognized the branches above him, and the lights of the enormous trunk, closer than he'd ever seen them before. The Spirit Tree!

"Sein is back in her proper place as my eyes," a deep, rich voice said. Just like Sein's voice, Ori heard it in his mind, and he knew it was as old as Nibel itself. He'd heard it before, describing with sadness what Kuro had done. But now… the Spirit Tree sounded happy?

"What happened?" Ori asked. He knew this couldn't be right. He'd been flying to the Spirit Tree, but Kuro had spotted him, he was sure of it! He'd failed. "Is this a dream?" another possibility occurred to him. "Am I dead? For real, I mean?"

"No..." the Spirit Tree chuckled. "You're alive. We all are, thanks to you."

"You came very close, though!" Sein interrupted. "After what happened, I thought you were lost forever… but you did it, Ori! We did it! Look around you!"

Ori peered over the edge of one of the roots, and gasped in amazement. There was green everywhere. The blackened skeletons of burnt trees covered most of the places he'd fought his way through, but grass, and even flowers, had sprung up among the destruction. "But how?" he asked. "I thought Kuro… I thought she caught me!"

The answer didn't come for a long time. Ori sensed Sein's hesitation. "She did catch us, Ori," Sein finally replied. "She caught both of us. I was pinned to the ground, and I couldn't see everything, but I couldn't tell if you were breathing or not. I was afraid she'd killed you. But then..." Sein paused. "Ori, Gumo took the last Spirit Light container from the Forlorn Ruins, and he used it to bring back Naru! He explained everything yesterday."

"You mean she's… she's alive?" Ori's vision clouded. He felt something wet running down his face. He was crying? Why? This wasn't a time to cry, was it? As impossible as it sounded, he knew instinctively that Sein was telling the truth. But he'd never known it was possible to cry from happiness.

"Yes. Naru and Gumo went looking for you. Gumo's path was blocked by fire, but Naru found you. And… when she picked you up and held you in her arms, I felt the clouds of hatred in Kuro's soul disappear. She looked back at Mount Forlorn, and all I felt was sadness from her… and fear. She carried me to the Spirit Tree, and reunited us. Naru brought you here."

"She did?" Ori bounded up on top of the root, excitedly scanning the clearing that surrounded the Spirit Tree. He winced from the movement – there was still deep pain, like broken bones. But nothing there even resembled Naru. "Where is she?"

"She couldn't stay here," explained Sein. "Our Light was needed to restore the forest, and to heal you, but that made it too dangerous for her to be close to us. She's gone back to Swallow's Nest."

Ori knew he should have been overjoyed by the news, and he was, but there was something else. Light… dangerous… Light was deadly to creatures of darkness. That was why Naru had hid them when the skies were lit ablaze. That was why Kuro's owlets had died that same night. "Sein?" he asked, already dreading the answer. "What happened to Kuro?"

"Well… Ori, I saw what happened at her nest too. If we could have waited until she was able to fly far enough away we would have, but the Spirit Tree and I had to use all of our strength to still Mount Horu's fury. We couldn't wait, or all might still have been lost.

"So she..."

"Kuro gave her own life," the Spirit Tree said. "It is unfortunate that things had to end this way. And I feel nothing but sorrow for my part in this tragedy. Sein has shared with me what you saw at the mountaintop… and how it affected you."

Ori pressed his head against his parent's warm bark, still silently crying. The Light comforted him, but the image of Kuro pressing her head against the owlets' smoking bodies appeared in his head again. He shivered.

"Ori, I know how you feel," Sein said gently. "I just want you to know that Kuro knew what she was doing. And… I had a chance to tell her how sorry I was. I promised her that anything we could do to make sure her last egg was safe, we would. Before the end, there wasn't any rage in her soul anymore. I don't know if I'd say she was happy, but… peaceful, at least."

"Oh." Ori looked at Mount Forlorn's snow-capped peak in the distance, half-hidden in the haze of the air. "But you and the Spirit Tree can't take care of the egg. Your light will burn it… just like before."

"After we explained the situation to Gumo and Naru, they decided they would take the egg in," explained the Spirit Tree. "I believe Gumo is currently working on finding a way to move it down from the mountain."

"Gumo _and_ Naru?"

"Gumo is the last of his kind," Sein said. "The Forlorn Ruins is no home for him anymore. He's going to live in Swallow's nest too from now on."

Ori smiled. "I guess that makes sense. We're all the last of our kind, aren't we? Gumo, Kuro's egg, Naru, and me?"

"I don't know for certain that there aren't more of Naru and Kuro's kind somewhere, far beyond Nibel." The Spirit Tree spoke even more slowly than he usually did. "But you are _not_ the last of your kind. Life will go on in Nibel. The forest will recover, and new spirits will be born to guard it against evil. You will not be alone for long." There was a moment of silence. "That is not meant to imply you are alone now," the Tree added. You have me, and Sein..."

It wasn't physically possible for a being without a physical body to clear her throat, but Sein did a very good impression of it.

"…and, of course, Naru," finished the Spirit Tree. He sighed, long and slow, like the creaking of branches swaying in the wind. "It is hard for me to be separated from you so soon after finally being able to see you… but trying to hold on to you was what caused all of this. And I could feel your distress when you awoke. I know how much you miss her."

"You're not fully healed yet," said Sein. "But it shouldn't take more than another couple of days. You can go see her soon!"

But a couple of days was too long. Ori was already hopping in place, testing his legs. He jogged up the root, then started to wall-jump and finally climb as it joined the Spirit Tree's main trunk. It hurt, but after all he'd been through, after dying and coming back more times than he could count, he didn't care. All that time, the one thing he'd wanted more than anything else was to see Naru again. A bit more pain was worth it. He stopped, clinging to the Spirit Tree's trunk. The rough bark provided plenty of holds for his claws and hooves. "The Corruptions and thorns and spines are all gone, right?" he asked.

"The corruptions are gone," Sein said. "There are probably still thorns and spikes in places, but the fire and our light should have destroyed most of the spinebushes."

"Okay." Ori took a deep breath. He could feel that he wasn't as strong now without the connection with Sein. Experimentally, he tried to use Spirit Flame. Nothing. He guessed he still wasn't old enough to use it, or Charge Flame on his own yet. But his body was still full of energy. Still clinging to the wall, he extended a paw, looking along his arm to get the angle right. He felt his legs begin to tingle as the power built up. "Then I'm healed enough to travel, aren't I?"

"...I guess so," Sein replied. "You know the way back to Swallow's Nest, right?"

"Yeah!" Ori glanced upward, up at the heart of the tree where he knew Sein was nestled among the branches. "I'll see you again soon!" he called. Then he looked forward again, and jumped. As he fell, he formed an orb of light in his paws and carefully tossed it forward at just the right angle and speed so he could jump off the air itself, grab the orb again, and leap off of it. He soared through the air, watching Nibel spin below him, letting his momentum carry him as far as he could. Just as he was approaching the ground, he steadied himself and made another midair jump, then landed lightly in the meadow and sprinted through the tall grass, laughing. He was finally going home.

* * *

A/N: And there you have it, folks! I didn't originally intend 100 Themes of the Blind Forest to be the kind of fic that would have an "ending," but as I wrote this last set, I realized it needed one to wrap things up. After all the trauma I put Ori through, he finally gets the happy ending he deserves!

I think this is all for this fic. When Will of the Wisps comes out next year, I might write something for it, though, and I'm thinking about doing some fics similar to this but with multiple fandoms so I can find something to fit every prompt, and Ori may make an appearance there. For now, I'd like to thank everyone at Moon Studios for creating this amazing, amazing game! I also need to thank the fan community for all they inspiration they've given me. There's too many awesome fan artists to list, so I think the best way to mention them is just link to my favorites on DeviantArt: ihcfanfic/favourites/?catpath=%2F&edit=0&q=ori. Everyone in there is awesome and deserves props. Finally, thank you to everyone reading this!

One final note: here are all the prompts of 100 Themes of the Blind Forest in approximate chronological order:

Theme 23: Cat (Doesn't belong at any particular point in time)

Theme 10: Breathe Again (Opening)

Theme 1: Introduction (Sunken Glades)

Theme 41: Teamwork (Sunken Glades)

Theme 16: Questioning (Sunken Glades / Hollow Groves)

Theme 17: Blood (Sunken Glades / Hollow Groves)

Theme 43: Dying (Moon Grotto)

Theme 8: Innocence (Thornfelt Swamp)

Theme 24: No Time (Ginso Tree Escape)

Theme 14: Smile (Thornfelt Swamp, after Ginso Tree)

Theme 12: Insanity (Thornfelt Swamp, after Ginso Tree)

Theme 91: Drowning (Thornfelt Swamp, after Ginso Tree)

Themes 3&4: Light and Dark (Blackroot Burrows)

Theme 6: Break Away (Valley of the Wind)

Theme 45: Illusion (Misty Woods)

Theme 7: Heaven (Forlorn Ruins)

Theme 19: Gray (Forlorn Ruins)

Theme 13: Misfortune (Forlorn Ruins Escape)

Theme 11: Memory (Kuro's Nest)

Theme 26: Tears (after Kuro's Nest)

Theme 18: Rainbow (Sorrow Pass)

Theme 20: Fortitude (Mount Horu)

Theme 89: Through the Fire (Mount Horu Escape)

Theme 9: Drive (After the ending, before the epilogue)

Theme 46: Family (After the ending, before the epilogue)

Theme 5: Seeking Solace (After the ending, before the epilogue)

Theme 2: Love (After the epilogue)

Theme 67: Playing the Melody (After the epilogue)

Theme 15: Silence (After the epilogue)


End file.
